The Marshall Project

About the ‘Anglo-American Heritage of Law Enforcement’

Jeff Sessions is right about the ‘heritage” of U.S. sheriffs, in more ways than one.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions was technically correct when he lauded the office of sheriff as “a critical part of the Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement” before a gathering of those officeholders on Monday. Assuming he was speaking etymologically, the word can be traced to the Old English , a combination of scir or shire, and , for reeve or chief, as the “representative of royal authority in a shire”

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