County Sheriff- The Elected Law

By Eric Pool

Updated July 20, 2023

We have unwavering support for our law enforcement all over the country, and it is no different for our local law enforcement. But we also have frustration lately with the lack of transparency in the Sidney police department, and we have heard from many residence this same frustration. We have discussed an idea of consolidating the PD into the Sheriff's department; making the policing more effective and gaining cost savings by eliminating redundant administrative cost, while still keeping officer count current. The Sheriff is the true head law enforcement of the county. Let's first define a Sheriff and discuss the origins of the title and roles. We pulled some definitions and explanations from the Free Dictionary off the Web to help explain.

The modern office of Sheriff in the United States descends from a one-thousand-year-old English tradition: a "shire-reeve" (shire-keeper) is the oldest appointment of the English crown. The reeve was the "king's man" within a shire, a small community of about one hundred families. Because county governments were typically the first established units of government in newly settled American territories, Sheriffs were among the first elected public officials in an area and thus developed a leading role in local law enforcement.

A dichotomy frequently exists today between a sheriff's jurisdiction and the jurisdiction of a local police department. A metropolitan area may encompass an entire county or more; police departments and sheriffs will often maintain concurrent jurisdiction in the overlapping area. A sheriff may assume that a local police department will do its duty in enforcing the law, but the primary obligation rests with the sheriff and requires him to act when evidence of neglect of that duty exists.

Overall we live in a wonderful relatively safe area. Sidney is great because of the people. One of the reasons we live here. The question is “can we do better?” The answer is yes. Most definitely yes. In law enforcement, we rate agencies by what is called the “Crime Clearance Rate”. Nebraska has a great clearance rate when compared to other states at just over 48%. In other states like Illinois is just 3.2% while Louisiana is an awesome 97%. This means in Nebraska when you commit a crime there is a 48% chance of you getting caught and convicted. Here is the thing, how many prosecutions are you hearing about here in Sidney?

We have been asking many questions the past 6 months around major crimes committed here in Sidney; Burglary and theft in a local casino, as well as, a brutal beating that severely injured a local young resident. All we want is transparency and we also think it is time for our Police Department to make some statements about investigations and crimes here in our city. We are a small community. We know everyone. Our crime clearance rate should be very high, especially on these high profile crimes.

The “broken window” theory is absolutely a proven fact. By enforcing the simplest of crimes, it many times prevents perpetrators from graduating to more serious crimes. Accountability of behavior is essential to effective policing, both for the perpetrators AND the officers to classify and handle incidents and crime reporting correctly.

Look around at states that let “small crimes “ go and practice “selective enforcement”. They are a mess! Two issues with that complacent way of policing. One, the number of repeat offenders will explode. Two, it’s a violation of section 1 of the 14th amendment (equal protection). It’s a snow ball effect; you don’t enforce law and the problems get bigger. This causes resources to be over run, so you selectively enforce and the cycle grows. With the triple coverage of law enforcement agencies here, crime should be minimal AND the clearance rate should be extremely high.

Based on the history of the origin of Sheriff and the size of our county; plus the excessive taxes, its time to give ALL law enforcement responsibilities to the one true Elected law enforcement of the county, the Sheriff. By folding the Sidney PD into the sheriff's office, it would consolidate administrative cost. Our small town and county can't afford redundant, unnecessary administrative bureaucracy. All of the dispatch comes out of the county building, the jail is housed in the county building, plus the sheriff has jurisdiction in the entire county. You would streamline policing AND have it be consistent. The current PD officers would move under the leadership of the sheriff, if qualified. Its done in small towns all over the country where the cities have the Sheriff handle the policing. This is by no means is a plan to reduce law enforcement presence or quantity. This eliminates redundant cost and takes the money and resources out of the hands of unelected bureaucrats and gives it to the Elected Sheriff. This idea makes county law enforcement stronger, more effective, and more consistent. The sheriff answers to the people, the way it should be. And our current Sheriff does an EXCELLENT JOB, and we support all of his department's hard work and professionalism. It’s obvious that the Sidney PD has become ineffective and inconsistent with enforcement.