News Police dept, Sherrif dept, US Marshal

here at least, police tend to be law enforcement officials at the local (city/town) level. sheriffs are at the county level of government (louisiana is the only state i know of with parishes instead of counties). us marshalls are at the federal level and enforce national law and have nationwide jurisdiction.

there seems to be some flexibility on jurisdictional issues since 9/11, tho. for example, we have cops from distant cities, as well as sheriffs and state troopers doing law enforcement on the interstate highways, now.

 

Police are usually municipal - city, village, town.

Sheriff and deputy sheriffs = county, a political entity larger than a city, town or village, although large cities like Houston and NY City could been in several counties. Each state has many counties.

State Police = Police force for state, e.g., NY, California, Texas.

At the federal level there are numerous law enforcement agencies, e.g. FBI, US Marshall, Secret Service, INS (Immigration), . . . .

 

And let's not leave out the Game Wardens. In Maine, they have all the authorities conferred on the Maine State Police with the additional (and primary) duties of protecting our natural resources. It can be a thankless and dangerous job, especially since wardens generally patrol alone, and perpetrators (especially during hunting season) are frequently armed.

A good friend of mine retired as head of the Maine Warden service several years ago. One night, he was lounging near the wood-stove in the finished basement in his briefs and a T-shirt, and his son hollered down that there had been shots close to the house (popular area for poachers to jack deer at night). He jumped up, ran to the garage and hopped in his cruiser and set off after the suspects, who were in a large PU with a wrecker boom. He called for assistance when he found himself getting shot at from the passenger-window of the truck. He got alongside the truck, jerked the wheel, and drove them into the ditch, and the driver and occupants bailed out and hit the woods. He ran into the woods after them with his handgun, wearing just the T-shirt and briefs, when he heard a trooper pulling up. He ran to the trooper's cruiser, and got a pair of sweats and some socks out of the trooper's gym bag, and they headed back into the woods. They arrested two of the guys that night and got the third the next day. Fodder for Turkey-Day stories for the kiddies for years to come. ;-) What do you do in YOUR Fruit of the Looms?

Then we have the Marine patrol, who not only protect coastal resources, but end up trying to resolve disputes from fishermen and lobstermen, etc, who have encroached on one anothers' territories. Lobster-trapping is especially territorial, with trapping areas jealously guarded against encroachment. In theory, if you have a valid license, you can go out and set traps, but in practice, if you set traps in areas that have been "traditionally" used by a particular family, especially around some of the inhabited islands, you will find your pot-lines cut, and your traps lost on the bottom. Shootings occur when this behavior escalates.

 

I have spent multi-day excursions out in the north woods with my warden friend, and believe me, they have to be resourceful. Drive on nasty rutted roads strewn with tire-slashing ledge and slate for hours and hours, and find yourself in a situation... You can guess how soon back-up might arrive, and how quickly you have to resolve a bad situation so that nobody gets killed. When his son graduated from the law-enforcement academy and passed warden training, his first posting was at Estcourt, and the very northern tip of Maine. I love the kid, and I'm proud of him for taking (and actually requesting) that posting - pretty much all alone if things go bad.

 

A relationship between those three that you have mentioned is found within the United States Bureau of Justice Assistance. Here’s a great example of how those three work together in a relationship with youth. :-)

 

DanP, I'm not a guy! I'm a doll.

 

The sheriff and police designations are state dependent. In a few states the sheriff does little while in some states such as where I live the sheriff enforces the law in counties.

 

This dates from the very earliest days of our nation. Alex Hamilton set up this arrangement to ensure that tariffs and such went to the national treasury. In those days this was the main source of income for our new nation. Naturally the states who had been the benefactors of this source of income were not to happy about it.