Swordsmyth
01-28-2019, 05:27 PM
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 its sympathy. And in the Trump era, some sheriffs, especially in conservative precincts, have flirted with anti-California treason, defying state laws that protect our immigrant families.
“The power of sheriffs,” historian Andrew Isenberg has written, “is inextricably tied up in the concept of a popular justice that is not bound by anything so mundane as the law.”
In theory, sheriffs should be accountable precisely because they are elected. The California Constitution requires every county to have an elected sheriff for that reason. But in practice, sheriffs’ elections are not healthy contests. They draw little media attention, so voters know little about the contenders or the issues.
And when sheriffs draw challengers, they typically come from among the sheriff’s own staff. This turns sheriffs’ elections into departmental civil wars, forcing deputies to choose sides and distracting everyone from protecting the public. Last year’s nasty fight in Santa Clara County between Sheriff Laurie Smith and her former Undersheriff John Hirokawa focused on which of these two bosses was more responsible for excessive force, racist texts and sexual solicitations among their mutual underlings.
The job’s unaccountable nature is, like our two houses of Congress, a nasty artifact of America’s history as an English colony. Going back to the ninth century, English sheriffs apprehended criminals, but mostly used violence to collect taxes and extort bribes. That’s why we still celebrate Robin Hood and curse the sheriff of Nottingham.
That’s also why England turned the sheriff into a ceremonial position in the 1800s. But California, like other U.S. states, has preserved the problematic power of the sheriff. Last year, Governing magazine criticized the American sheriff as highly susceptible to corruption.
More at: https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/Time-to-get-rid-of-sheriffs-in-California-13562693.php?cmpid=gsa-sfgate-result
:mad:
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 its sympathy. And in the Trump era, some sheriffs, especially in conservative precincts, have flirted with anti-California treason, defying state laws that protect our immigrant families.
“The power of sheriffs,” historian Andrew Isenberg has written, “is inextricably tied up in the concept of a popular justice that is not bound by anything so mundane as the law.”
In theory, sheriffs should be accountable precisely because they are elected. The California Constitution requires every county to have an elected sheriff for that reason. But in practice, sheriffs’ elections are not healthy contests. They draw little media attention, so voters know little about the contenders or the issues.
And when sheriffs draw challengers, they typically come from among the sheriff’s own staff. This turns sheriffs’ elections into departmental civil wars, forcing deputies to choose sides and distracting everyone from protecting the public. Last year’s nasty fight in Santa Clara County between Sheriff Laurie Smith and her former Undersheriff John Hirokawa focused on which of these two bosses was more responsible for excessive force, racist texts and sexual solicitations among their mutual underlings.
The job’s unaccountable nature is, like our two houses of Congress, a nasty artifact of America’s history as an English colony. Going back to the ninth century, English sheriffs apprehended criminals, but mostly used violence to collect taxes and extort bribes. That’s why we still celebrate Robin Hood and curse the sheriff of Nottingham.
That’s also why England turned the sheriff into a ceremonial position in the 1800s. But California, like other U.S. states, has preserved the problematic power of the sheriff. Last year, Governing magazine criticized the American sheriff as highly susceptible to corruption.
More at: https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/Time-to-get-rid-of-sheriffs-in-California-13562693.php?cmpid=gsa-sfgate-result
:mad: