eli5 What’s the difference between a police officer and a sheriff?
In: 146
Where I live, Sheriff, Deputy Sheriff is a county law enforcement officer. Police refers to city law enforcement personnel.
Another version; the sheriff department runs the whole county, they don’t do much in town because that’s where the police have their jurisdiction, but the sheriff still technically has jurisdiction in town, they just let the police boys mess around with that non sense. But police only have jurisdiction in just their town or city. It’s weird.
I can only speak to my state (Virginia, USA), but my understanding is that it’s not too different in other US States.
The Sheriff is an elective position, and the police chief isn’t.
In my area, the Sheriff’s office deals more with the functions of the judiciary (Bailiffs, prisoner transport to and from court, etc) and more specialized policing, while police do the ‘day to day’ law enforcement.
Where I live the police work the city, sheriff deputies work the county, and state troopers work the state (highways and interstates)
Sheriff is an elected position. Deputies work at the discretion of the Sheriff. Sheriffs Office generally runs the jail, provides court security, and serves warrants. In most counties they also provide general law enforcement service for unincorporated parts of the county.
Police work for a city and the chief is usually hired by the mayor or city council. Police provide general law enforcement service to the city only.
There are lots of overlapping jurisdictions and mutual aid agreements. It can be confusing, especially when you throw in state police or highway patrol, campus police, hospital police, specialized state criminal investigators, federal investigators, etc.
Where I live there is a county sheriff with no duties beyond running the jail and serving warrants. There is a county police department which serves the parts of the county which don’t have local police departments (most of the county).
Depends on where you live. In British Columbia, the police have the usual law enforcement duties you’d expect, and the Sheriffs are in charge of courthouse security and prisoner transport.
Typically, police are municipal level (city) while sheriffs are county level. In rural places and unincorporated areas, sheriffs may be primary law enforcement but in urban and suburban areas where there are city police then the primary role of sheriffs are typically to run the county’s jails, court security, and transport of prisoners between jails and courts.
There are some good definitions in here, I would add that Sheriff is also refereed to as a constitutional law enforcement, due to the fact that they are elected and not hired or appointed.
This pretty much covers it and then some:
[Last Week Tonight | Sheriffs](https://youtu.be/v_kak7kAdNw?si=c9PW6Y0iYYSsHEeO)
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