California
- Counties
- 58
- Active bodies
- 9
- Reports
- 0
sheriffoversight.org
A public reference for civilian oversight of county sheriffs in the United States.
The 3,000+ U.S. county sheriffs are the only directly-elected law-enforcement officials in the country, and the only ones who simultaneously run a jail. Civilian oversight of sheriffs is rare, fragmented across states, and where it exists, hard to find. This site indexes the bodies that exist, their statutes, and the reports they publish.
State action · 2020–2025
Six legislatures, six different decisions.
In six years, state legislatures have done six different things to civilian oversight of sheriffs — from authorizing it, to mandating it, to carving sheriffs out of it, to abolishing it outright.
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Enabling California
AB 1185 permits any county’s Board of Supervisors to establish a civilian oversight body for its sheriff’s office. Seven counties have done so.
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Exclusion Virginia
HB 5055 created one of the country’s strongest civilian oversight frameworks — with subpoena power and binding discipline authority — but its definition of “law-enforcement officer” explicitly excludes sheriffs and deputy sheriffs.
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Mandate Maryland
HB 670 made Maryland the only state to require a civilian Police Accountability Board in every county and Baltimore City. The statutory definition of “law enforcement agency” includes sheriff’s offices.
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Abolition Tennessee
HB 0764 dissolved Nashville’s Community Oversight Board and Memphis’s Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board, replacing them with advisory committees that have no investigatory power. Enacted three months after the release of the Tyre Nichols body-camera footage.
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Preemption Florida
HB 601 made Florida the first U.S. state to bar local governments from creating civilian oversight agencies that investigate law-enforcement misconduct. At least 15 pre-existing local boards dissolved or went dormant within six months.
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Prohibition Iowa
SF 311 prohibited cities of 8,000 or more residents from maintaining or creating citizen conduct-review panels for any law-enforcement agency. Iowa’s 99 counties never had sheriff oversight bodies; no city can now create one either.
Coverage
Washington
- Counties
- 39
- Active bodies
- 1
- Reports
- 0
Texas
- Counties
- 254
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Illinois
- Counties
- 102
- Active bodies
- 1
- Reports
- 0
New York
- Counties
- 62
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Florida
- Counties
- 67
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Georgia
- Counties
- 159
- Active bodies
- 1
- Reports
- 0
Maryland
- Counties
- 24
- Active bodies
- 15
- Reports
- 0
Arizona
- Counties
- 15
- Active bodies
- 1
- Reports
- 0
Colorado
- Counties
- 64
- Active bodies
- 1
- Reports
- 0
Nevada
- Counties
- 17
- Active bodies
- 1
- Reports
- 0
New Mexico
- Counties
- 33
- Active bodies
- 1
- Reports
- 0
Ohio
- Counties
- 88
- Active bodies
- 1
- Reports
- 0
Virginia
- Counties
- 95
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Alabama
- Counties
- 67
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Arkansas
- Counties
- 75
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Kentucky
- Counties
- 120
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Louisiana
- Counties
- 64
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Mississippi
- Counties
- 82
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Oklahoma
- Counties
- 77
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Tennessee
- Counties
- 95
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
West Virginia
- Counties
- 55
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
North Carolina
- Counties
- 100
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
South Carolina
- Counties
- 46
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Iowa
- Counties
- 99
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Kansas
- Counties
- 105
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Minnesota
- Counties
- 87
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Missouri
- Counties
- 115
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
North Dakota
- Counties
- 53
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Nebraska
- Counties
- 93
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
South Dakota
- Counties
- 66
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Idaho
- Counties
- 44
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Montana
- Counties
- 56
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Utah
- Counties
- 29
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Wyoming
- Counties
- 23
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Indiana
- Counties
- 92
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Michigan
- Counties
- 83
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Wisconsin
- Counties
- 72
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Maine
- Counties
- 16
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
New Hampshire
- Counties
- 10
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Vermont
- Counties
- 14
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
New Jersey
- Counties
- 21
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Delaware
- Counties
- 3
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Pennsylvania
- Counties
- 67
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Oregon
- Counties
- 36
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Massachusetts
- Counties
- 14
- Active bodies
- 0
- Reports
- 0
Not covered
Hawaii, Alaska, Connecticut, and Rhode Island are not covered here because none has an elected county sheriff system. Connecticut abolished its county sheriffs by constitutional amendment in 2000; Hawaii and Alaska never adopted one; Rhode Island has only state-level appointed sheriffs. See about for the history.
Sheriff offices — data snapshot
58
sheriffs named · 1 state · 58 counties covered
$13.07B
total budget
Data coverage grows as crawlers are added per state.