The origins of the sheriff office

¶ … Emergence of the Sheriff in the United States

For as long as there have been communities, there has been the need for protection from crime. In the United States, continuous territorial expansion throughout its first 200 years created a need for law and order in each new region. The United States used a variety of institutions to provide protection to citizens from the vagaries of crime.

Although the U.S. federal government had established its own law enforcement system with the U.S. Marshals and U.S. cities established organized police departments as public municipal services, these two institutions were not enough to account for the law and order needs in each region. The United States has inherited many of its governmental institutions from England, the most visible being the bicameral legislature and the common law system. Thus, it is not surprising that the Americans have been influenced by England's law enforcement system, particularly the sheriff system.

As America expanded westward in the 1800s, many towns arose that did not have strong governments capable of organizing a city police department such as those found in cities on the eastern seaboard. These Western frontier towns were often unstable and unorganized, requiring a fairly informal and inexpensive system of law enforcement. In most frontier towns, the mayor would elect a Sheriff as the chief law enforcement official for a larger county. The mayor could pick out a sheriff from the local community or send an invitation to a nearby town containing experienced lawmen.

The office of the sheriff was responsible for protecting civilians from bodily and property crimes, custody of criminals, collecting taxes, and regulation of commercial activities within the county. Because the sheriffs were responsible for such a variety of duties over such a broad range of territory, they were allowed to hire assistants or, as they came to be known, deputies. Some sheriffs kept multiple deputies on hand and this system became the foundation for the modern county police force still found in some counties.

As these western towns became more populated and organized, the town governments were able to organize more traditional city police departments. These city police departments were sometimes given authority over some of the duties traditionally left to sheriffs. Sheriffs were then relied on for regulation of affairs outside city limits such as maintenance of roads. However, even these inter-city duties came to be assigned to State law enforcement bodies such as the highway patrol.