Victimizing the System: The Sheriff's Perspective on Public Order Criminality and Criminal Justice

County sheriffs were surveyed to assess their beliefs regarding the impact overcrowding within the criminal justice system was having on the operations of their respective departments. Also tested was the premise that certain public order (or victimless) crimes were having a detrimental impact on the operations of their departments and the ability of the criminal justice system to sanction such offenses. Finally, sheriffs were quened as to their relative approval of decriminalization of each of these public order offenses. It was found that the strong majority of the sheriffs surveyed believed that attempts to police public order offenses were having a detrimental impact on their department and the criminal justice system. In spite of this, however, sheriffs were unwilling to decriminalize public order offenses, even those which are officially decriminalized in many jurisdictions, and unofficially ignored in many others.