Print Column: Is It Time to Stop Electing Sheriffs?
The past couple of weeks I’ve been listening to the exceptional podcast “In the Dark” produced by Minnesota-based American Public Media.
The topic of the podcast’s first season, first released in 2016, is the Jacob Wetterling case, but toward the end of the series is an episode dealing with a problem I hadn’t really thought of as a problem before.
Is it really a good idea to be electing county sheriffs?
The podcast was focused on poor performance and a lack of accountability in the Stearns County Sheriff’s Department in Minnesota, which badly botched the Wetterling case, but it’s clear from recent news reports that we have our own problems with sheriffs here in North Dakota.
Just this month a deputy in the Burleigh County Sheriff’s Department was arrested for charges related to the theft of a pound of methamphetamine, among other items.
