The Surprising Power of Sheriffs

Four years ago I drove to a small town in rural Missouri to meet the parents of Billy Ames, who were suing the St. Francois County Sheriff’s Department over his death. An autopsy said the cause was a meth overdose, and jailers admitted they had strapped Mr. Ames to a restraint chair. While reporting on the case for The Marshall Project, I learned that other facilities had banned restraint chairs, medieval-looking devices that experts say can make it harder to spot a medical crisis.

I visited the jail and it felt like a dungeon, with moldy walls and little sunlight. The man in charge, Sheriff Daniel Bullock, once joked that this place was his personal bed-and-breakfast. He denied wrongdoing and said if I published anything false I shouldn’t come back. I watched my speed as I drove out of town.

St. Francois County has about 67,000 residents, and soon after my story came out Sheriff Bullock won his 2020 Republican primary with 6,185 votes and cruised to re-election. The Ames family ended up settling for $1.8 million, and former detainees brought a class-action lawsuit over the jail conditions. Then, this past August, Mr. Bullock lost in the primary, after more than three decades in power, with just 1,981 votes. The winner received 3,800.

Those numbers reflect voters’ typical disinterest in sheriff elections. But we ignore sheriffs at our peril. They wield tremendous power over investigations, arrests and policies that can mean the difference between life and death. A CBS News investigation found that in 2022, more than 27 people died in the custody of sheriffs for every 100,000 arrested, compared with fewer than 10 in the custody of the police.

So it’s worth your time to look up your local sheriff and see whether he or she is up for re-election this year. Given how many people ignore these races, your vote may have outsize influence over how all sorts of policy questions play out in your community. Consider that Mr. Bullock won his first primary race in St. Francois County, in 1992, by just 22 votes.

Police chiefs are usually appointed in cities, while sheriffs are often elected in counties to be chief law enforcement officers. They can have a vast range of roles, from running the jail to patrolling the streets and securing the courthouse. “In rural areas they are often medics, marriage counselors and coroners,” writes the journalist Jessica Pishko in her recent book, “The Highest Law in the Land.”