NCJ Number
252834
Date Published
October 2019
Publication Series
Annotation
Provides personnel information on the approximately 3,000 sheriffs' offices in the United States.
Abstract
This report is the 10th in a series that began in 1986. It provides personnel information on the approximately 3,000 sheriffs' offices in the United States. It describes the number of sworn and civilian staff, demographic characteristics of sworn officers, and personnel assigned to specialized functions.
Highlights
- Sheriffs' offices employed about 173,000 full-time sworn officers in 2016.
- About 52% (roughly 186,000 out of 360,000) of all full-time staff in sheriffs' offices were limited-sworn or civilian employees.
- The number of full-time limited-sworn or civilian employees in sheriffs' offices increased 20% from 2003 to 2016, while the number of full-time sworn officers was about the same in both years.
- More than half (55%) of sheriffs' offices employed less than 25 full-time sworn officers.
- About 4% of sheriffs' offices had the equivalent of 250 or more full-time sworn officers in 2016, and those offices employed about half (47%) of all full-time sworn sheriffs' officers nationwide.
- About 1 in 7 sheriffs' officers, and about 1 in 8 first-line supervisors, were female.
Date Modified: January 27, 2021
The note in appendix table 1 was revised to better reflect which agencies were included in the table, and also added additional non-respondents to the 2016 LEMAS survey who were in the top 50 largest offices in 2012.
Date Published: October 25, 2019