Reviewing the position of Elected Sheriff

The county sheriff is the problem child among California elected officials. No office is less accountable, or more reliable in producing scandal.

Once elected, sheriffs in all 58 counties have power over jails and policing, and act pretty much as they please. Under our state’s structure, a sheriff in California can’t really be fired. Those most liable to complain about a sheriff – inmates and those accused of crimes – have trouble gaining the public’s ear, let alone sympathy. And in the Trump era, some sheriffs, especially in conservative precincts, have flirted with defying state laws that protect immigrant families.

“The power of sheriffs,” wrote historian Andrew Isenberg, “is inextricably tied up in the concept of a popular justice that is not bound by anything so mundane as the law.”

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