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Whats the difference between US Police and Sheriff Dept?


vonduck1

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Hi guys - I guess mainly our American friends... In NZ we only have a Police Dept... I notice in the States they have Police Dept and Sheriff Dept... hence all the skins etc for mods... Is there a real difference between the 2 or is the Sheriff Dept a sort of lower grade Police Dept some how? Curious to know!... AND dont mean to be offensive at all! :) Thanks guys Doug

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Since all the states are made up of counties, each county has a sheriff's office/department that's main focus is to provide policing services all over the county. The sheriff's department is also responsible for enforcing the law in unincorpirated parts of the county, ex. mountainous and desert regions that do not contain towns or cities. If cities do not have a police force of their own, the sheriff is able to contract with the city for a price, much less than the cost of owning your own police department, and so the law is enforced by the sheriff's department in that city.

 

To sum it up, anywhere there's not a police department to enforce laws inside of a county's jurisdiction, the sheriff's department steps in and controls that area. The sheriff's department is basically set-up the same as any police department, in terms of ranks and organization.

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Sheriff's are democratically elected in most states (Alaska and Connecticut are the exception, because they do not have sheriff's offices. Hawaii has a state wide sheriff's office without an election), and are the head of the county's sheriff's department. In other police departments, the higher ups are selected.

 

Sheriff's offices have jurisdiction over unincorporated areas in the county (places not within jurisdiction of a city) and any city that contracts with them. Then depending on where they are in the US, some departments primarily handle jail services for the county while others both enforce laws in the county and take care of the jails.

Sticks and stones may break bones, but 5.56 fragments on impact.

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Don't forget that there are Sheriff depts in some cities. For example, in the city of Baltimore exists the office of Baltimore Sheriff, who's responsible of the enforcement of court decisions, serving warrants, protecting courts and so on. They do not police the city, though. 

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So, a quick sumary

 

Sheriff's Department/Office

- Democratically elected Sheriff

- Have deputies, not officers

- In charge of the county, not just restricted to city limits

- Often the one's protecting courts

- Often the one's who take care of the county jail

 

Police Department

- Not democratically elected chief of police

- Their police officer's are restricted within the city limits

- They have police officers, not deputies

 

 

That's just a quick summary, however there are some places where both the police department and sheriff's department/office also patrol, E.G. In LA. There's LAPD & LASD who patrol the city. But a sheriff department/office can also have contract cities, in other words they do not have their own police, so they pay the sheriff's department/office to patrol within the city limits.

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It sorta depends where you are too, mind you. Some towns out there still have Sheriffs, some counties have Police Departments. But usually it is more or less a game of jurisdictions, though they basically play the same role for the most part.  

 

Let's take Florida:

Here in Florida, a Sheriff's dept. usually has Jurisdiction in the county that they're in (i.e. Orange County Sheriff's Office in Orange County,FL), and typically acts outside the City Limits of a City, though as mentioned, they're typically bailiffs in the Courthouse, which is usually in the City.

 

Police Departments (not counting state police, which in some states also plays the role of the in most cases Highway Patrol) are usually limited to their City Limits. In some cases, both are usually allowed to cross into each other's jurisdiction, but it is often under rare circumstances.

I know it wasn't asked about, but I did mention Highway Patrols. Their primary focus involves roads. The FHP for example has jurisdictions through pretty much all of Florida, even inside cities. Apart from enforcing all the driving laws, they are also responsible for filing reports about incidents (car crashes, struck pedestrian, etc.) that involve an automobile. A good example here is, let's say a Red Light Runner T-Bones another motorist on a street here in Orange Co. OCSO would usually be the first responders, and will usually be the ones blocking off the intersection to help the Fire dept. get to the scene. At the same time, the FHP will send a Trooper (their equivilent of an Officer or Deputy) to the scene to file the paper work and file any charges that need to be filed, as well as any citations. They do have the same power as a Police Officer or Sheriff, but their primary role and focus is enforcement of the highway code, with the local authorities (sherriff and police) responding to calls that do not directly involve a vehicle. Note that this function (and name) changes between states. Of course, PDs and SOs usually will too do some of the road law enforcement too and will conduct traps and traffic stops as well.

 

This is more Florida Specific, it may change depending on the State.

~EDIT~ One last part, if you're not familiar with it, or didn't understand it earlier. Cities usually lie within counties, and counties are within states. Here is Florida as an example:

florida-county-map.gif

 

 

Edited by Leonov

[img]http://www.lcpdfr.com/cops/forum/crimestats/user/3782/sig.jpg[/img]

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Don't forget about the venerable State Troopers too (State Police), which is what many local/county police aspire to attain, from what I'm told by a Flint Police shift captain I know, now retired.

 

They get a lot of territory to patrol.  I see a lot of them in downtown Detroit hitting the streets lately, helping out the city police. 

 

DrDetroit

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Since all the states are made up of counties, each county has a sheriff's office/department that's main focus is to provide policing services all over the county. The sheriff's department is also responsible for enforcing the law in unincorpirated parts of the county, ex. mountainous and desert regions that do not contain towns or cities. If cities do not have a police force of their own, the sheriff is able to contract with the city for a price, much less than the cost of owning your own police department, and so the law is enforced by the sheriff's department in that city.

 

To sum it up, anywhere there's not a police department to enforce laws inside of a county's jurisdiction, the sheriff's department steps in and controls that area. The sheriff's department is basically set-up the same as any police department, in terms of ranks and organization.

This is not necessarily the case. For instance, Connecticut has counties, but has no county governments - the counties are used for certain state government divisions (like courts), but there are no sheriffs because there are no county governments. Other places, a city might be independent of any county (Baltimore, every incorporated city in Virginia), or might have merged with its county (Las Vegas), or might include *several* counties (NYC, whose boroughs are technically all counties). If it's a consolidated city-county, the police and sheriff might have merged (e.g. Las Vegas, which has a police department headed by an elected sheriff), or the sheriff might just handle the courts (Philadelphia). Independent cities tend to have their own sheriffs. Washington DC has the US Marshals instead, because it's government situation is weird (that's the technical term). Other places (Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, as well as all but the sparsest areas of New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine), there are no unincorporated areas - every inch of land is in an incorporated town. County government, even when it exists, doesn't tend to do much in New England. Sheriffs don't patrol in these places, because town police patrol instead. There are also counties with a county police force in addition to a sheriff. Here, too, the sheriff doesn't handle patrol anymore - it is passed off to the county police.

The main duties that reliably fall to a sheriff are process serving and enforcing civil orders and judgments, running a county jail, providing court security, providing inmate transport, and generally serving as the enforcement wing of the courts. (even then, NYC's sheriff doesn't do that - they just enforce civil judgments in favor of the city, collecting the money the city is owed). In most places, the sheriff provides full-service law enforcement, but it's certainly not everywhere. When there's a police department or a patchwork of departments covering the whole county, their role tends to be restricted to the court system.

They also are typically but not always elected - Hawaii has a statewide unelected sheriff, as does Rhode Island. NYC's sheriff is appointed by the mayor.

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Holy Moly!!

 

So many various types of policing - its a wonder there is any crime at all! LOL! :tongue:

 

Seriously, thanks very much for the clear explanations of all that... very illuminating..

 

I guess it would be somewhat difficult then for a person wanting to get into law enforcement to actually think about the path he wants to take.. whether police, sheriff, trooper, highway patrol etc... you have to be sure what and why you chose a particular field...

 

Perhaps Sheriff is the oldest of them all given your wild west days where we only see sheriffs and deputies, never police.. then again that's as you say in the small towns in the country...

 

Which is the most popular to join in the states then?

 

Appreciate the time put into these comments folks - have learned much!

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I love sheriff! I don't why but i like sheriff more than police! lol

Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens | U.S. Marshals Office Lexington, KY

 

30 Seconds... 20 Seconds... 10 Seconds...  BANG BANG!! Chief - You do know were not able to shoot people on site anymore? R. Givens - He pulled first! *Season 1 Opener*

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I have the sense most officers are in police departments, because most of the largest agencies are police agencies (2 reasons: 1, they're in big cities, and 2, police tend to be more associated with a civil-service system than sheriffs, and play better with the mayor's policies (since the chiefs are appointed, not elected)). However, which one an individual would want to join would depend on a lot of things, many of which are not specific to policing but instead affect every job (pay/benefits, culture, size, etc.) Sheriffs' offices tend to be older, because they're formed when the *county* is formed, and not when the *city* is formed (also, it lines up more with historical law enforcement; the notion of a professional police department is newer than you'd think, while a sheriff is just "this guy enforces the law, and if he needs help, deputizes others to help"). You also often can lateral between different types of agency; it's not that unusual for a police officer to transfer to a sheriff's office, or a state trooper to become a local cop: police, sheriff, and state police don't work in different fields, and for lateral hiring purposes, tend to be treated identically. All are generally sworn peace officers, and that matters more.

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There is also one more other type of Police which is also almost rarely mentioned in the US, but if you know where to be (usually around RR Tracks or most larger Amtrak Stations) you'll see them. That would be Railroad Police officers. Most of them have their lines drawn around the trackage rights, and virtually every company has it's own agency and cars (even Amtrak outside the Northeast Corridor, for example, a famous case in Savannah when they Tresspassed the TSA Vipr team.) In this aspect, they are more or less federal officers as their jurisdiction I imagine would go beyond state lines because of how each railroad runs.

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Well you forgot the most important one.....the HIGHWAY PATROL / STATE TROOPERS / or STATE POLICE. In the U.S. there is 50 states all in which have a highway patrol or state police or state trooper depending on where you live (except Hawaii, they have a sheriff DEPT.) therefore I think the best is the Highway Patrol certainly the North Carolina Highway Patrol. Now the thing about the State whatever is that they have jurisdiction all over the state which means they can almost patrol anywhere IN THEIR OWN STATE. 

 

But I think that they are the most important (my opinion)

 

 

Holy Moly!!

 

So many various types of policing - its a wonder there is any crime at all! LOL! :tongue:

 

Seriously, thanks very much for the clear explanations of all that... very illuminating..

 

I guess it would be somewhat difficult then for a person wanting to get into law enforcement to actually think about the path he wants to take.. whether police, sheriff, trooper, highway patrol etc... you have to be sure what and why you chose a particular field...

 

Perhaps Sheriff is the oldest of them all given your wild west days where we only see sheriffs and deputies, never police.. then again that's as you say in the small towns in the country...

 

Which is the most popular to join in the states then?

 

Appreciate the time put into these comments folks - have learned much!

 

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Well you forgot the most important one.....the HIGHWAY PATROL / STATE TROOPERS / or STATE POLICE. In the U.S. there is 50 states all in which have a highway patrol or state police or state trooper depending on where you live (except Hawaii, they have a sheriff DEPT.) therefore I think the best is the Highway Patrol certainly the North Carolina Highway Patrol. Now the thing about the State whatever is that they have jurisdiction all over the state which means they can almost patrol anywhere IN THEIR OWN STATE. 

 

But I think that they are the most important (my opinion)

Not always. Here's the thing: If you say something about state law or government that is *not* required by federal law, and you say it applies to all states, you're wrong. Some states (from quick reading, Ohio is among them) give highway patrol extremely limited power off state property - the OSHP seems to be unable to arrest on private property except during hot pursuit and riots. OTOH, in California, any peace officer has statewide jurisdiction - a cop from a small town in the middle of nowhere can technically go to downtown Los Angeles and have just as much authority as in his hometown.

Railroad police are in fact their own category; they generally have authority on railroad property in every state the railroad operates. Sometimes, this is government-run (Amtrak Police, commuter rail police forces), sometimes private (Union Pacific police, who were actually a model used when the FBI was set up). Especially if government-run, they might get full law-enforcement authority in the jurisdictions the railroad operates in, instead of just on the property (the DC Metro Transit Police have authority in parts of *3* states-or-state-like-entities-because-DC-isn't-actually-a-state-but-close-enough).

Also, any notion that one kind of cop is "the best" implies a hierarchy that *does not exist* - the highway patrol/state police aren't necessary the "elite" that every cop aspires to, just as SWAT teams aren't. It's a separate agency; it may have a better reputation than a local agency, but that depends on the agencies, and isn't inherent in state/local distinction. State agencies tend to have a much greater focus on doing traffic, because interstates are almost always under their primary jurisdiction - a cop who wants to keep their city safe would be advised not to join the state police, because that's generally not what they do.

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