Hello, citizens of Stapleton County. After I posted a public poll on whether or not the office of County Sheriff should be elected, I have been presented with numerous unique viewpoints on the matter. After closing the poll yesterday, a result was obtained showing 53% of voters in favour of the idea, with a turnout of 246 voters. Moving beyond the fact that this is an incredible number of voters for a poll that was only open for two days, I will now deliver my opinion on this controversial subject.
The idea of an elected Sheriff (which does exist in some Ro-states, such as Ridgeway) is inspired by real life. Numerous counties in the United States have Sheriffs or other law enforcement heads who are elected by the people. However, much like with the existence of elected judges (or elected public servants in general), these roles can become highly politicized. This is an issue, as the nature of these offices would entail that the holders be free from partisanship and politics, which is why, to quote Chief Justice DannyboyJurist, “…a key tenant of many police reform movements is not having elected sheriffs.” When an individual is subject to election, they care more about their ability to be re-elected or their public perception than they do about properly upholding the law and their duties.
Now, to get more specific to Firestone. I have four main points that I’d like to touch on.
1. The Role of County Sheriff is Not Unique
With the existence of the PDP, RPD, APD, SCSO, FSP, FBI, DHS, FNG MP & CG, DOC, and FPS, there are 10 law enforcement or law enforcement-esque agencies in Firestone. Each of these agencies have unique jurisdictions and scopes of focus, but none are truly unique in their powers and duties. They are all tasked with, to some degree, upholding the law. The Stapleton County Sheriff’s Office is among the least unique of them. It does not investigate crimes like the FBI, nor protect public officials like DHS, nor guard correctional institutions like DOC. It is simply the primary law enforcement agency of Stapleton County. To quote DannyboyJurist again:
“Irl, sheriffs are elected because they used to be the only law for hundreds of miles and also collected taxes, facilitated evictions, and ran a jail. They still do that in (most) states today. Which is why they’re elected—because of the history (frankly it’s too much effort to change) and the weird powers their office has on top of LE.”
To quote mariahcareyuser, “what the shit are these people gonna campaign on? internal SCSO policy change?”
Having an elected Sheriff in real life makes sense due to the immense responsibilities that a Sheriff can hold, and the need for the electorate to check those responsibilities. However, these extra responsibilities do not exist in Stapleton County.
2. Having an Election Does Not Constitute a Check on Power
Next, having an elected Sheriff would – in my opinion – reduce the amount of accountability in the Sheriff’s Office. Currently, the Sheriff can be dismissed by the County Executive at any time, and is subject to their orders. However, the Sheriff being elected would sever that relationship and would allow the Sheriff to act more independently from the Executive Branch. While this can be a good thing in the event of a corrupted Executive Branch, it could also lead to a corrupted Sheriff’s Office. Unless we kept the power of the District Attorney to fully audit the SCSO, and we instituted the ability to recall the Sheriff (or simply made the term length short), nothing could stop the Sheriff from doing whatever they so pleased for four to six months.
Even with all of these processes in place, having elections for Sheriff would simply overcomplicate things. It would create more scandal, more hassle, and would take more power away from the County Government (which is already highly neglected and disregarded). All for it to be pointless at stopping the stated causes of disdain towards the SCSO: corruption, nepotism, or inactivity.
3. Inconsistency & Failure of Leadership
Another reason for contention that has been mentioned a lot is inconsistency, and an inability for change to be affected within the constraints of term lengths. For example, Sheriff A can be elected and can spend four months setting up new policies, staffing the High Command team with people they like, and running the Department how they want to. But four months later, Sheriff B can be elected in the place of Sheriff A and can undo all of these policy changes and reshuffle the Command team. This creates job uncertainty and a lack of merit in command positions.
If I were to work for several years to become an SCSO Lieutenant or Captain, I wouldn’t want all of that progress to be thrown away by a Sheriff who chooses to install one of their friends in my place. Or, if I got to that high point and I chose to run for Sheriff and win it, what happens to me once my term ends? All of the progress is lost. And, if we were to instead keep the employment rights of SCSO Command members rather than transform them into at-will employees, then a new Sheriff wouldn’t be able to get anything done or make any meaningful changes to the Department. Not only would that Sheriff be unable to address key issues, but they would likely contribute to those issues.
If the Sheriff is only accountable to anyone once every ~4 months, why would they bother to be active in-game? Why would they bother to avoid corruption, or to make careful decisions? Any disadvantages that exist of having appointed Sheriffs will not turn into advantages with elected Sheriffs.
4. A Lack of Support
I do admit that 53% public support of an elected Sheriff is more than I expected, and is an actionable amount. However, an anonymous poll of 23 SCSO deputies shows that internal support is only 22%. If an elected Sheriff would be unable to gain the confidence and respect of their subordinates, they would be unable to lead. As a matter of fact, at least three SCSO Deputies have already come to me and said that they’d be likely to quit the Department if the role of Sheriff was an elected office.
To quote DevelopingJordan, “If someone can jump straight to the top just by winning a vote, whats the point of putting in years of dedication and hard work?”
Adding onto this, there is debate over what the qualifications would be for an elected Sheriff. If you simply required them to have a POST certification and no SCSO experience, they would have a lack of knowledge on how SCSO operates and likely wouldn’t do a good job at properly satisfying its needs. If you put a rank requirement, such as Sergeant+, it would defeat the purpose of having an elected Sheriff in the first place and would allow the current Sheriff (or their successors) to block opponents from reaching supervisory ranks.
Conclusion
In case you couldn’t tell by this point, I am against the idea of having an elected Sheriff. Even though I have been reassured that I do, in fact, have supermajority-level support in the County Council to make a Charter Amendment for an elected Sheriff, I would not put forward such a proposal simply to further my legacy in this County. It would be a fundamentally bad idea, and I support the current system of selecting department heads.
Also, please know that I typed this in about 20 minutes without editing it. Bear with me if it’s longwinded, riddled with errors, incomprehensible at parts, or simply a poor argument. It also doesn’t nearly cover all of the reasons why we shouldn’t elect our chief law enforcement officers. I would be happy to discuss this subject further in DMs or, better yet, in the replies to this post.
Thank you.
