Why do cities have both a police department and a sheriff's department. What is the point? In my town there are both patrolling the same city streets, although only the deputies handle calls outside of the city limits. For large metro areas, virtually every acre of land is incorporated into some township and therefore under their police. Having a sheriff's department seems redundant to me.
WHERE I LIVE... THE SHERIFF TAKES CARE OF COUNTY SITUATIONS THE TOWN COPS TAKE CARE OF TOWNS THE NJ STATE POLICE OVER-RIDE ALL
Yup. Here, city cops have jurisdiction in towns (and extraterritorial areas), sheriffs are county cops (but have jurisdiction in town too), and the State Police/Highway Patrol rule everywhere. We also have constables, which primarily handle civil police activity such as evictions, but can also handle criminal activity. There's also police departments at the colleges, and those are real cops too. Pretty much all of them are part of the revenue stream for the governments in the area.
I'll bump this up a step. When I lived in Reno, the Sheriff would use the Fish & Game boys to check cars out for 'exceeded limits of fish' in order to seach a car. And if they found other items of interest, all the more bonus. The F&G officers did not need much probable cause for a search....The laws may have changed though in the last twenty years.
Here the DNR can do pretty much whatever they want. They have the power to walk right in your lake cabin/house without warrant.
Here the sherrif runs the jail and courts county police do the county city police do the city State police do the highways and intercity crime
Ok Try to make this as basic as possible. A Sheriff is an elected official. Police Dept. have hired Chiefs. Chiefs can be fired on the spot. Sheriff's can not. A Sheriff's office has the responsibilty of the courthouse, jails, serving papers, warrants, etc. Were it gets confusing is like where I work-- our agency we are considered the Sheriff's Police, and are the primary law enforcement agency in the county. Simply put police depts. don't generally serve papers, courthouse, etc. In some jurisdictions the Sheriff's office serves papers, mans the jail and thats it--they don't run any calls. Every place is different I'm sure.
BRUCE & 285ferrari have it correct. When myself, other property owners and the chamber of commerce were trying to clear drug houses out of certain LA neighborhoods in the late 90s we'd somehow fanagle the LAPD, the county Sherrif and other municipal PDs to cooperate interjurisdictionally but that was definitely not the norm. What really freaks me out is that my favorite stretch of freeway and three very nice roads near my house all lead to a police shooting range where officers from all over the area from the FBI to the CHP to the meter maids and even private citizens go regularly for practice. There are so goddam many black and whites on those roads and nineteen out of twenty are not in service or out of their jurisdiction but when I stomp on the throttle coming off the light or out of a curve and then see a black and white with a light bar on top my $%#^#%$ heart stops! The CHP and the LAPD turn their heads and give me the old stink-eye once in a while but the Sheriffs and the other PDs never seem to care.
