Sheriffs in the United States
In the United States, a sheriff is the chief of law enforcement of a county.[1] Sheriffs are usually either elected by the populace or appointed by an elected body.[2]
Sheriff's offices are typically tasked with: operating jails, security at courthouses and county buildings, protection of judges and juries, preventing breaches of the peace, and coordinating with city police departments.[3] Sheriff's offices may also be responsible for security in public areas and events.[4]
A sheriff's subordinate officers are referred to as deputies and they enforce the law in accordance with the sheriff's direction and orders.
Overview[edit]
Sheriff's offices[edit]
The law enforcement agency headed by a sheriff is most commonly referred to as the "Sheriff's Office", while some are instead called the "Sheriff's Department."[5] According to the National Sheriffs' Association, an American sheriff's advocacy group, there were 3,081 sheriff's offices as of 2015.[6] These range in size from very small (one- or two-person) forces in sparsely populated rural areas to large, full-service law enforcement agencies, such as the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which is the largest sheriff's office and the seventh largest law enforcement agency in the United States, with 16,400 members and 400 reserve deputies.
A regular officer of a sheriff's office is typically known as a deputy sheriff, sheriff's deputy or informally as a deputy. In a small sheriff's office, the deputies are supervised directly by the sheriff. Large sheriff's offices have several ranks in a similar manner to a police department. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has thousands of regular deputies, who are eight ranks below the sheriff. The actual second-in-command of the sheriff typically holds the title of chief deputy or undersheriff. In some counties, the undersheriff is the warden of the county jail.
Election[edit]
Of the 50 U.S. states, 48 have sheriffs. The two exceptions are Alaska, which does not have counties, and Connecticut, which replaced its county sheriff system with the state and judicial marshals in 2000.[7][note 1] Washington, D.C.,[note 2] and the five territories also do not have county governments.
Sheriffs are elected to four-year terms in 43 states, two-year terms in New Hampshire, three-year terms in New Jersey, and six-year terms in Massachusetts.[8] Sheriffs are appointed instead of elected in Hawaii, Rhode Island and a small number of counties elsewhere.
In many rural areas of the United States, particularly in the South and West, the sheriff has traditionally been viewed as one of a given county's most influential political office-holders.
Research shows that sheriffs have a substantial incumbency advantage in elections. An incumbent sheriff has a "45 percentage point boost in the probability of winning the next election – far exceeding the advantages of other local offices."[9] Relative to appointed police chiefs, sheriffs hold office for twice as long.[9]
Sheriffs in the United States generally fall into three broad categories:
There are two federal equivalents of the sheriff;
Sheriffs by state[edit]
Alabama[edit]
In Alabama, a sheriff is an elected official and the chief law enforcement officer in any given county. There is one sheriff for each of Alabama's 67 counties, with a varying number of deputies and various staff members (usually dependent on the population). A sheriff's office generally provides law-enforcement services to unincorporated towns and cities within the boundaries of the counties.
Alaska[edit]
The office of sheriff does not exist in Alaska by the State's Constitution. Instead the functions that would be performed by lower-48 sheriffs and their deputies (such as civil process, court security, and prisoner transport) are performed by Alaska State Troopers and Alaska DPS Judicial Services Officers, who are the equivalent of bailiffs in lower-48 jurisdictions. AJS officers wear uniforms similar to troopers and staff district court facilities statewide but not magistrate's courts. Their peace officer status is limited to courthouses and when transporting prisoners in custody. Additionally, with no county jails, Alaska Dept. Of Corrections runs regional prisons which have separate male and female inmate "pretrial wings", which keep pretrial inmates who are legally innocent, separate from convicted prisoners who are serving a court imposed sentence following a criminal conviction. Pretrial wing units are the AK equivalent of lower-48 county jails. This uniquely makes AK DOC officers both correctional officers and jailers. Pretrial units house persons charged who are formally charged with crimes and remanded to pretrial custody, vs. traditional prisons for persons convicted and sentenced to a term of incarceration.
Other important representations of fictional sheriffs have been Collie Entragian (Desperation and The Regulators), Alan Pangborn in The Dark Half and Needful Things, and Edgler Vess in Dean Koontz's novel, Intensity.