Sheriffs

The office of sheriff has developed into what it is today over a long period of history. The office began in medieval England when the country was divided into tribal areas known as shires, the equivalent of a modern county. In antiquity, the King's justice was administered by “shire-reeves,” who presided over the shire courts. The sheriff, then, is the modern counterpart of the shire-reeve. After William the Conqueror claimed the English crown in 1066, there was no uniform criminal law in England. The many individual shire courts were dominated by sheriffs, who enforced the village rules as they saw fit. Formal law enforcement agencies emerged in England in the 13th century, evolving to meet the needs of the day.

The first colonists in America established law enforcement institutions as the first communities were established. These colonists brought with them the forms of law enforcement they had known in England: the sheriff, the constable, and the watch. Over time, these English institutions evolved and took on decidedly American features. The sheriff, who was generally appointed by the colonial governor, was the head of the local government. The sheriff was empowered to make arrests and to raise the posse comitatus to pursue fleeing felons. In addition to law enforcement, the sheriff was responsible for collecting taxes, conducting elections, maintaining roads and bridges, and numerous other duties. This system of political appointment soon gave way to local elections because of citizens’ fear of lodging such great authority in the state. This system was thought to increase the sher-iff's accountability to the public and remains in place in most jurisdictions today. This led to a highly decentralized system of law enforcement in the United States that remains largely autonomous today. Advocates of community policing have criticized modern law enforcement agencies as reactive rather than proactive, largely because calls for service take up most of an officer's time. The early sheriffs were truly reactive; they only responded to complaints brought to them and had no systematic preventive patrol strategy.

It has been estimated that there are nearly 3,100 sheriffs’ offices operating nationwide with an estimated 290,707 full-time employees, including about 186,000 sworn personnel. Most sheriffs serve small, sparsely populated jurisdictions, and a few very large agencies employ a majority of officers. Although only a sixth of sheriffs’ offices serve a jurisdiction with 100,000 or more residents, such agencies employ about two thirds of all sworn personnel. About a fifth of sworn personnel are employed in jurisdictions with 1 million or more residents. In contrast, about half of all sheriffs’ departments serve populations under 25,000.

Modern sheriffs are rather unique in law enforcement in that they are elected by the people of the county, usually for a period of 4 years. (In Louisiana, many police chiefs are elected, as are some in Texas and New Hampshire.) This means that a new sheriff can come from outside a department or even outside of law enforcement in general. Usually, however, sheriffs will have some background in law enforcement, such as within a sher-iff's department, a police department, or the state [Page 431]police. As were their historical counterparts, modern sheriffs are the chief law enforcement officers of their counties. The office of sheriff is constitutionally based in most states.

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