The History of the Sheriff's Department

The Office of Sheriff is certainly significant, and was in fact the first county office established in the United States.  Some very outstanding Americans have held the office of county sheriff, from the earliest days down to our present era.  George Washington’s father was an early Sheriff in colonial Virginia.  The first person to read the declaration of Independence in public was John Nixon, the Sheriff in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1776.  In Michigan, records reflect that Thomas Edwards was elected as the first Sheriff of Chippewa County in 1837 and Sheriff Joe Bayliss was called to Washington in 1912 to head the investigation of the sinking of the Titanic. 

The Sheriffs of America have indeed played a significant role in the history of our nation, and the Sheriffs of Michigan are certainly no exception to this heritage.  A brief study of the history of Michigan will reveal the Michigan sheriffs have contributed greatly to the development of our state.  Today the Sheriffs of Michigan feel honored to be associated with this proud tradition of the past.

Probably more important, however, is the present responsibility that the Sheriffs of Michigan feel in helping their office achieve the modern standards of law enforcement professionalism and to be sensitive to the needs and desires of the citizens of their counties.  We feel that it is critical to keep the Sheriff sensitive to the needs of the people rather than by a few influential politicians.  If the Sheriff is elected by the majority of the voters of a county, it is essential that he/she remain sensitive to the needs of all the people and not just of a select few.  Electing the Sheriff is one of the privileges that has been a cornerstone of “government by the people.”

There are those today who believe that Sheriffs should be appointed rather than elected.  If the citizens are to preserve this democratic heritage, it is imperative that we take a stand and insist that the Sheriff’s Office be an office that belongs to the people of a county.  This is a statement that the public generally will misunderstand and criticize but every law enforcement officer knows that at time he/she must use discretion.  A judge may send one person who steals $1,000 up for five years while he puts another who steals the same amount on probation.  The law expressly gives them that discretion.  It does not expressly give like discretion to the sheriff, yet an officer cannot always ignore circumstances. There are times when persuasion is better than force; when a warning will do more good than an arrest. Probably it is true, as sometimes charged, that the sheriff goes a little farther in the matter of using discretion than do other police officers.  The test should always be what is best for the person involved and for the public, with the emphasis on the later, and the sheriff should always remember that the discretion he/she may properly use is rather limited.

The sheriff should glory in the fact that he/she is picked by the people themselves to serve them.  We have had freedom, personal liberty, so long and so easily that we place little value upon that freedom, but ignore the lessons of the past know that the elected sheriff is one of the bulwarks standing between us and the loss of those liberties.  You will not have Gestapo headed by an elected sheriff.  Turning that statement around, no Hitler or Stalin could operate with a police system headed by an officer chosen in a free election.

In Chippewa County in Michigan there are eight deputies and they take their cars home.  They do so to be ready to respond to any crisis that may come up any time of the day or night.  There are 82 Border Control officers in Chippewa County.  Because the sheriff is an elected official and the deputies are very visible in the communities as coaches for little league, etc. these officers are called upon a lot by the community. Because of this they have encountered and taken in more people who are not supposed to be in this country. 

The Sheriff’s Department is responsible for taking care of the county jail.  There are 177 beds and an average of 160-162 inmates on a regular basis.  They serve approximately 500 meals per day. The inmates are charged $20. a day for their room and board to try to recover some of the expenses.  80% of the inmates are local area prisoners and 20% are federal inmates, not from Chippewa County.  The Sheriff’s Department hold a contract with the U.S. Marshalls.  The Department is paid 1.4 million for transports and housing federal inmates.  There are two floors for the jail and male and female sections.  The inmates are separated by a classifications system.  Females constitute 35 to 40% of the jail population, mostly due to drug crimes.  The first seven years that Sheriff Savoise erved in the sheriff’s department there were no women at the jail. 

The Sheriff’s Department have to serve out the court’s orders which include foreclosures, summons and complaints.  This department is responsible for the lakes and streams.  They must recover bodies.  There was a discussion about airboats and hover crafts. 

The Chippewa County Sheriff’s Department was ranked two years in a row by the State of Michigan for one of the top policing agencies.  Sheriff Savoie was very proud of this prestige.  The sheriff’s office is an institution.  There is one in each of Michigan’s 83 counties and they work largely under the same rules.  No one sheriff’s office can be entirely disassociated from the other 82 offices.  If one sheriff fails in his/her duty, all other suffer and more than most officers the sheriff lives in a glass house.  His/her failures are publicized.  Conversely when one sheriff does an outstanding job, the sheriff’s office as an institution profits, the credit he/she has earned benefits the other sheriffs, with the public generally and with the legislature.  The standing of the office with the legislature is important.  At every session the sheriffs and other enforcement officers come to the legislators asking statutory changes that will make for better enforcement.  The more confidence the legislators have in them the better will be the results, and back through a third century at least, the success of the sheriffs in securing needed legislation has been decidedly unusual.  They have had the legislators’ confidence and the public has profited thereby.  If we the people continue to have enough governmental know-how to govern ourselves, we will keep the sheriff permanently, and will keep him/her as an elect official.