Harris County Sheriff's Office
The Harris County Sheriff's Office is a local law enforcement agency serving the over four million citizens of Harris County, Texas, United States. It is headquartered on the first and second floors in the 1200 Baker Street Jail in Downtown Houston.
As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the county had a population of 4.1 million, making it the most populous county in Texas and the third most populous county in the United States. Its county seat is Houston. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office has approximately 3,500 employees and is the largest sheriff’s office in the state of Texas and the sixth largest in the nation. The number one and two largest sheriff’s offices in the nation are respectively the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in California and the Cook County Sheriff's Office in Illinois. The third, fourth, and fifth are the Broward County Sheriff's Office in Florida, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office in Florida, and the San Diego County Sheriff's Department in California.
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office is the primary law enforcement agency in the of unincorporated area of Harris County, serving as the equivalent of the county police for the approximately 1,071,485 people living in the unincorporated areas of the county. In Texas, sheriffs and their deputies are fully empowered peace officers with county-wide jurisdiction and thus, may legally exercise their authority in unincorporated and incorporated areas of their county; they primarily provide law enforcement services for only the unincorporated areas of a county, while yielding to municipal police or city marshals to provide law enforcement services for the incorporated areas. Sheriffs and their deputies also have statewide warrantless arrest powers for any criminal offense committed within their presence or view. They also may make arrests with a warrant anywhere in the state. In an emergency, sheriffs along with mayors and district judges are empowered by state law to call forth the National Guard to preserve the peace.
The jurisdiction of the Harris County Sheriff's Office often overlaps with several other law enforcement agencies, among them the Texas Highway Patrol, the eight Harris County Constable Precincts, and several municipal police agencies including the city of Houston Police Department. The duties of a Texas sheriff generally include keeping the county jail, providing bailiffs for the county and district courts within his county and serving process issued by said courts, and providing general law enforcement services to residents. The current sheriff of Harris County is Ed Gonzalez, elected in 2016 and has been in office since January 1, 2017.
Organization
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office is divided into ten bureaus: Executive, Patrol, Patrol Support Services, Detective, Public Services, Detentions, Field Operations Support, Human Resources, Support Services and Homeland Security. Each bureau, commanded by a major, performs essential functions for the department. Each bureau is further divided into divisions/sections.- Executive Bureau
- * Internal Affairs Division
- * Public Information Office
- Patrol Bureau
- * District 1
- * District 2
- * District 3
- * District 4
- * District 5
- Patrol Support Service Bureau
- * Traffic Enforcement Division
- * Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Unit
- * Crime Control Division/Hot Spot Unit
- * Park Patrol Division
- * Canine Unit
- * Marine Division
- * Dive Team
- * Motorist Assistance Program
- Criminal Investigations Bureau
- * Sex Crimes Unit
- * Auto Theft
- * Burglary & Theft
- * Crime Scene Unit
- * Criminal Warrants Division
- * Domestic Violence
- * Homicide
- * Covert Operations Division - Narcotics/Vice Unit
- * Runaways
- * Sex Crimes Offenders Registration
- * Victims Assistance
- Detention Bureau
- * 1200 Baker Street Jail
- * 701 San Jacinto Street Jail
- * 1307 Baker Street Jail
- Public Services Bureau
- * Courts Division
- * Prisoner Logistics Command
- ** Inmate Processing Center
- ** Central Records
- ** Transportation Division
- Reserve Command
- Field Operations Support Services Bureau
- * Communications Division
- * Investigative Support Division
- Support Services Bureau
- * Inmate Affairs
- * Medical Division
- * Support Services
- Human Resources Bureau
- * Recruiting and Background Investigations
- * Academy
- * Personnel Services
- * Family Assistance Unit
- * Uniform Supply and Inventory Control
- * Career Development
- * Business Office
- * Network Administration
- Homeland Security Bureau
- * Bomb Unit
- * High Risk Operations Unit
- * Marine Unit
- * Aviation Unit
History
Harris County sheriffs:
| Name | Dates |
| John W. Moore | 1837-1841 |
| John Fitzgerald | 1841-1843 |
| Mangus T. Rodgers | 1844-1846 |
| David Russell | 1846-1850 |
| James B. Hogan | 1850-1854 |
| Thomas M. Hogan | 1854-1856 |
| John R. Grymes | 1856-1858 |
| George W. Frazier | 1858-1861 |
| B.P. Lanham | 1861-1865 |
| John Proudfoot | 1866 |
| Irvin Capters Lord | 1866 |
| A.B. Hall | 1866-1873 |
| Sam S. Ashe | 1873-1875 |
| Cornelius M. Noble | 1876-1883 |
| John J. Fant | 1884-1886 |
| George W. Ellis | 1887-1895 |
| Albert Erichson | 1896 |
| W. M. Baugh | 1897-1898 |
| Archie Anderson | 1899-1912 |
| Marion F. Hammond | 1913-1918 |
| Thomas A. Binford | 1919-1936 |
| Norfleet Hill | 1937-1942 |
| Neal Polk | 1942-1948 |
| Clairville "Buster" Kern | 1949-1972 |
| Jack Heard | 1973-1984 |
| Johnny Klevenhagen | 1985-1995 |
| Tommy Thomas | 1995-2009 |
| Adrian Garcia | 2009–2015 |
| Ron Hickman | 2015-2017 |
| Ed Gonzalez | 2017- |
Ranks
These are the ranks of the Harris County Sheriff's Office:Those with the rank of sergeant and above are issued gold badges. Deputies are issued silver badges. Detention officers wear updated blue uniform shirts and are issued a silver badge and Detention Officer Sergeants are issued gold badges and wear gold stripes. Academy cadets wear a white uniform shirt with a cloth badge.
Promotion to the ranks of sergeant through captain are made via a civil service testing process that includes a written exam and an oral review board. Chief deputies and majors are appointed by the sheriff.
Reserve Command
The HCSO Reserve Command is the largest sheriff's reserve organization in Texas and second nationally only to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Other departments throughout the nation have copied the HCSO Reserve program as an effective way to increase available personnel without capital expenditures. The monetary savings of the HCSO reserve Command to Harris County totals more than $100 million over the last 40 years.HCSO Reserve deputies have the same training, legal authority and responsibilities as full-time HCSO deputies except that they volunteer their services and are not monetarily compensated.
Reserve deputies work in all areas of the HCSO, including Patrol, Criminal Warrants, Criminal Investigations, Fugitive Transports, Tactical Medicine, and Marine Patrol, to name a few. Approximately 200 citizens from all walks of life currently form the Harris County Sheriff's Office Reserve Command. They include engineers, mechanics, doctors, corporate managers, and lawyers. Some reservists previously worked as regular law enforcement officers and many regular deputies began their career as a reserve deputy.
Deputies in the HCSO Reserve Patrol Bureau work policing the 5 patrol districts in the unincorporated areas of Harris County. This area has a population of about 1.5 million residents, and it continues to grow.
When new deputies are assigned to patrol, they enter a field training program which trains them to execute all of the duties of a solo patrol deputy, including, but not limited to, traffic accident investigations, arrest procedures, answering calls for service, issuance of traffic citations, and preparing offense reports. Reserve patrol deputies who successfully complete the field training program may work patrol alone as a one-man patrol unit. While on patrol, reserve patrol deputies answer all types of calls and have the same duties as full-time, paid patrol deputies.
In addition to normal duties, reserve patrol deputies regularly address specific crime problems by executing proactive initiatives in specific areas. Past initiatives have targeted crimes such as drug trafficking, gang activity, street racing, DWI enforcement, and bar disturbances.
Experienced reserve patrol deputies also serve as instructors, Intoxilyzer operators, firearms instructors, and field training officers. Some reserve patrol deputies join the HCSO Mounted Patrol and patrol on horseback at special events and parades.
In 2012, reserve patrol deputies answered over 15,000 calls for service, wrote more than 900 offense reports, issued over 500 citations, made more than 200 arrests, and carried out over a dozen patrol initiatives.
Fallen officers
Since the establishment of the Harris County Sheriff's Department, 42 officers have died in the line of duty.| Officer | Date of death | Details |
Correction facilities
The Harris County Sheriff's Office's correction facilities are located in Downtown Houston, all within a block of one another. They include the 1200 Jail, the 701 Jail, and the 1307 Jail. Previously 1301 Franklin and 301 San Jacinto were jails.the Harris County jail facilities together have a capacity for 9,434 inmates; at time they have held over 12,000. Due to the excess number of prisoners, the HCSO had to ship inmates to other jails, including some in Louisiana; in June 2010 1,600 Harris County inmates were serving time at other jails. By January 2012 the Harris County jails had 8,573, a decrease by 31% from 2008 to 2012, and there were only 21 inmates serving time in other jail facilities, all in Texas.
The county opened the Atascocita boot camp in 1991, but it closed in September 2004 as the county decided that its rehabilitation value was questionable. The vocational programs, once at the camp, were transferred to the Downtown area.