101: Far Right Sheriffs

In the United States today, over 3,000 sheriffs and their offices play a key role in maintaining and advancing mass incarceration, mass deportation, and White supremacy. In both American frontier fictions—where sheriffs are depicted as countering the “un-American” violence of “outlaws” and indigenous peoples—and in far-right imaginations, sheriffs are singled out as the defenders of real Americans and their liberties from both racial outsiders and the power of a corrupt federal government.

Going back at least to the late 1960s, the Far Right has celebrated sheriffs as holding sovereign power at the county level, answerable only to God and whatever interpretation of the Constitution they find personally satisfying. Most sheriffs, unlike other law enforcement, are elected (a few are appointed) and often overlooked in analysis of the carceral state. As elected law enforcement officials, sheriffs frequently depict themselves as being representative of the wishes and desires of people in the United States, despite the fact that sheriffs, as a group, are over 90% White and male. The position of sheriff is often quite influential in local politics and increasingly sheriffs are upheld by right-wing media to advance national political goals. Sheriffs are also subject to many of the same influences as other politicians, since the position is elected, and they often work directly with right-wing social movements to advocate for and preserve discriminatory and oppressive systems.