Louisiana

Louisiana parish sheriffs are among the most powerful constitutional law enforcement officers in the United States under La. Const. Art. V § 27. Each of the 64 parish sheriffs is directly elected, controls a multi-million-dollar budget derived from fees and tax millages set independently, and is subject to no parish-level civilian oversight body. New Orleans's federal consent decree covers NOPD, not the Orleans Parish Sheriff.
Sheriff oversight
0/64 counties with a dedicated body 0 reports from those bodies
Other oversight
0 Civil Grand Jury reports 0 statewide oversight reports
Compare costs Compare Louisiana sheriff departments side by side
64 sheriffs named · of 64 counties
Population, budget, $ per resident, staffing, and jail capacity across all 64 counties.

Data from CA State Controller's Office and CA State Sheriffs' Association.

State context

Louisiana's sheriff is a constitutional officer, elected parish-wide for a four-year term under La. Const. Art. V, § 27, which also makes the sheriff the parish's chief law enforcement officer, the executor of court orders and process, and the collector of state and parish ad valorem taxes and such other taxes and license fees as provided by law. The same section states that it does not apply to Orleans Parish; Orleans Parish still elects its own Sheriff, but the office there is not designated the parish's chief law enforcement officer under this provision.

Four parishes have a consolidated city-parish government: Orleans Parish and the City of New Orleans are fully coterminous, with no separate parish government, while East Baton Rouge Parish and the City of Baton Rouge, Lafayette Parish and the City of Lafayette, and Terrebonne Parish and the City of Houma each combine city and parish government only in part, with other incorporated municipalities sitting outside the consolidated structure. In all four, the elected parish Sheriff remains a separate constitutional officer from the consolidated executive and council. Louisiana has no separate police department run by parish government to supplant an elected sheriff, of the kind found in some other states; incorporated municipalities run their own city police departments, and the parish Sheriff patrols unincorporated parish territory and runs the parish jail.

Counties

0 of 64 counties have a dedicated civilian sheriff oversight body. Highlighted rows have an established body. See methodology for scoring.

# County Status (date) Started (date) LE capability Independence

No record found · 64 counties

  • Acadia Parish
  • Allen Parish
  • Ascension Parish
  • Assumption Parish
  • Avoyelles Parish
  • Beauregard Parish
  • Bienville Parish
  • Bossier Parish
  • Caddo Parish
  • Calcasieu Parish
  • Caldwell Parish
  • Cameron Parish
  • Catahoula Parish
  • Claiborne Parish
  • Concordia Parish
  • De Soto Parish
  • East Baton Rouge Parish
  • East Carroll Parish
  • East Feliciana Parish
  • Evangeline Parish
  • Franklin Parish
  • Grant Parish
  • Iberia Parish
  • Iberville Parish
  • Jackson Parish
  • Jefferson Davis Parish
  • Jefferson Parish
  • LaSalle Parish
  • Lafayette Parish
  • Lafourche Parish
  • Lincoln Parish
  • Livingston Parish
  • Madison Parish
  • Morehouse Parish
  • Natchitoches Parish
  • Orleans Parish
  • Ouachita Parish
  • Plaquemines Parish
  • Pointe Coupee Parish
  • Rapides Parish
  • Red River Parish
  • Richland Parish
  • Sabine Parish
  • St. Bernard Parish
  • St. Charles Parish
  • St. Helena Parish
  • St. James Parish
  • St. John the Baptist Parish
  • St. Landry Parish
  • St. Martin Parish
  • St. Mary Parish
  • St. Tammany Parish
  • Tangipahoa Parish
  • Tensas Parish
  • Terrebonne Parish
  • Union Parish
  • Vermilion Parish
  • Vernon Parish
  • Washington Parish
  • Webster Parish
  • West Baton Rouge Parish
  • West Carroll Parish
  • West Feliciana Parish
  • Winn Parish