A Thread About Your State's Elected Sheriffs & Prosecutors
(You Should REALLY Care Who They Are)
SHERIFFS
When you call 911, a sheriff or one of their deputies might be the one to respond to your call. Many of these offices operate their own 911 dispatch/call/communications centers.
Sheriffs wield a tremendous amount of power, but they are often left unaccountable for their actions since it is very difficult to remove them from office in-between election cycles.
Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and West Virgina will be holding sheriff elections in all of their counties.
Delaware, Maine, Montana, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, and Washington will have sheriff elections in select counties.
"More than 3,000 sheriffs' offices operate across the United States. A sheriffs' office is a local law enforcement agency organized at the county level and directed by a sheriff, who is usually an elected official."

Source: https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=72
In 2016, there were more than 170,000 sworn personnel employed at sheriff's offices across the United States.

Source: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/so16p_sum.pdf
Sheriffs respond to service calls, patrol, investigate crimes, arrest suspects, execute warrants, enforce traffic laws, investigate accidents, enforce drug laws, enforce court orders, operate jails, transport prisoners, and much more.
The largest sheriff's office in the United States is the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department which had 9,351 full-time sworn personnel in 2016. Followed by Harris County Sheriff's Office in Texas with 2,207 full-time sworn personnel.
The Harris County Sheriff's Office in Texas is headquartered in #Houston, Texas. Harris County will be holding elections for sheriff and DA in the General election on November 3.

#HoustonProtests
In 2016, the Bureau of Justice Statistics produced a report titled Sheriffs' Office, 2016: Personnel.

It is available here: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/so16p.pdf
The report found that only "about 1 in 7 sheriffs' officers" and "about 1 in 8 first-line supervisors" were female.

Sheriff's Officers: ~14%
First-Line Supervisors: ~12.5%

50.8% of the population in the U.S. is female
The study also found that "about 1 in 5 sheriffs' officers" and "1 in 6 first-line supervisors" were Black or Hispanic.

Sheriff's Officers: ~20%
First-Line Supervisors: ~16.7%

~31.7% of the population in the U.S. is Black, African American, Hispanic, or Latino
You can use the http://census.gov  website to understand the statistics in your county.
PROSECUTORS
Prosecutors play an incredibly important role once someone has been arrested. They decide what charges will be brought against suspects, often amplifying the inequities inherent in the justice system.
Nearly 95% of the cases prosecutors bring end with the accused pleading guilty. For minorities and low-income people, this can mean that they plead guilty to crimes they didn't commit to avoid further jail time after their arrest and just get back home to their families.
The National Registry of Exonerations is a great resource to use to check on your prosecutor's office.

Fine it here: http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/about.aspx
There were 143 exonerations in 2019.

30 - IL
15 - PA, TX
11 - NY
9 - MI
7 - CA
6 - FL, MD
5 - KY
4 - NC
3 - LA, MA
2 - CT, GA, IN, OK, UT, WA
1 - AR, CO, HI, ID, ME, MN, MO, NH, NM, OH, OR, SC, SD, TN, VT, VA, DC

Source: https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Exonerations_in_2019_Infographic.pdf
Illinois, Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wisconsin will be holding prosecutor elections in all counties in the 2020 General election on November 3.
This thread ran out room so i'll make another one about which prosecutors and sheriffs up for election this year have bad track records.

#BlackLivesMatter #RegisterToVote #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd #IAmSoSickOfThis #VoteThemOut #VoteForYourLife
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