Atlantic County Sheriff's Office

History of the Office of the Sheriff

Over one thousand years ago in England, the shire, was formed when groups of hundreds banded together. The shire was the forerunner of the modern county. Just as each hundred was led by a reeve (chief), each shire had a reeve as well. To distinguish the leader of a shire from the leader of a mere hundred, the more powerful official became known as a shire-reeve.

The word shire-reeve eventually became the modern English word sheriff. The sheriff--in early England, and metaphorically, in present day America-- is the keeper, or chief, of the county. Under King Alfred the Great, who assumed the throne in the year 871, the sheriff was responsible for maintaining law and order within his own county. However, it remained the duty of every citizen to assist the sheriff in keeping the peace. If a criminal or escaped suspect was at large, it was the sheriff's responsibility to give the alarm -- the hue and car, as it was called. Any member of the community who heard the hue and cry was then legally responsible for helping to bring the criminal to justice. This principle of direct citizen participation survives today in the procedure known as posse commictus. Originally, tuns had ruled themselves through the election of tithingmen and reeves. Over the years, however, government became more centralized -- concentrated in the power of a single ruler, the king. The king distributed huge tracts of land to various noblemen, who thereby became entitled to govern those tracts of land under the king's authority. Under this new arrangement, it was the noblemen who appointed sheriff's for the counties they controlled. In those areas not consigned to noble men, the king appointed his own sheriff.

At the battle of Hastings in 1066, the Saxon king Harold was defeated by the Normans -- invaders from the country we now call France. The Normans, who did not believe at all in local government, centralized their power. Rule was greatly consolidated under the king and his appointees. More than ever before, the sheriff became an agent of the king. Among the sheriff's new duties was that of tax collector.

Dictatorial rule by a series of powerful kings became more and more intolerable over the years. Finally, in 1215, an army of rebellious noblemen forced the despotic King John to sign the Magna Carta. This important document restored a number of rights to the noblemen and guaranteed certain basic freedoms. The text of the Magna Carta mentioned the role of the sheriff nine times, further establishing the importance of that office.

Over the next few centuries, the sheriff remained the leading law-enforcement officer of the county. To be appointed sheriff was considered a significant honor. The honor, however, was a costly one. If the people of the county did not pay the full amount of their taxes and fines, the sheriff was required to make up the difference out of his own pocket. Furthermore, the sheriff was expected to serve as host for judges and other visiting dignitaries, providing them with lavish entertainment at his own expense. For these reasons, the office of sheriff was not often sought after. In fact many well-qualified men did everything they could to avoid being chosen. The law on this point was quite clear -- if a man was chosen to be sheriff, he had to serve.

When English settlers began to travel to the New World, the office of sheriff traveled with them. The first American counties were established in Virginia in 1634, and records show that one of these counties elected a sheriff in 1651. Although this particular sheriff was chosen by popular vote, most other colonial sheriffs were appointed. Just as noblemen in medieval England had depended upon sheriffs to protect their tracts of land, large American landowners appointed sheriffs to enforce the law in the areas they controlled. Unlike their English counterparts, however, American sheriffs were not expected to pay extraordinary expenses out of their own pockets. Some sheriffs -- most of whom were wealthy men to begin with -- even made money from the job. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, American sheriff's were assigned a broad range of responsibilities by colonial and state legislatures. Some of these responsibilities, such as law enforcement and tax collection, were carried over from the familiar role of English sheriff. Other responsibilities, such as overseeing jails and workhouses, were new.

Prior to the signing of the Magna Carta in 1214, the most common punishments for crimes that did not warrant the death penalty had been flogging or other sorts of physical mutilation. When confinement became favored as a more civilized way to deal with criminals, authorities in medieval England introduced the county jail. They began to experiment with other sorts of facilities as well. Among these were the workhouse, where minor offenders were assigned useful labor, and the house of correction, where people who had been unable to function in society could theoretically be taught to do so. All three of these institutions were brought to colonial America, and the responsibility for managing them was given to the colonies' ubiquitous law-enforcement officer, the sheriff.

As Americans began to move westward, they took with them the concept of county jails and the office of sheriff. The sheriff was desperately needed to establish order in the lawless territories where power belonged to those with the fastest draw and the most accurate shot. Here it is said that sheriffs fell into two categories, the quick and the dead. Most western sheriffs, however, kept the peace by virtue of their authority rather than their guns. With a few exceptions, sheriffs resorted to firepower much less often then is commonly imagined.

Reprinted from the National Sheriffs' Association publication.

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