Cobb county Sheriff and PD. Someone explain?

[madmedic]

Ok, so being from Tennessee and traveling to Atlanta every now and then, I had to get a few things into my receivers just to satisfy my need to know on whats going on around me lol.
However, I tried to do research on Cobb PD and Sheriff but no luck.
I am just trying to understand since there is a Sheriff Department AND a Police department, why not create a unified one entity agency?
I looked up both departments and it seems that both are accredited LE agencies....
Can someone explain to me the difference between the 2?
For example, Metro Nashville Police in Tennessee is very easy: PD does law enforcement etc, sheriff does only prisoner transport and is NOT accredited as a law enforcement agency.
Thanks for reading!

 

[rmiller818]

Same idea here, Cobb SO handles the Courts, the jail, serves warrents, and also does some investigative work (probably forgot somethings). Cobb PD handles the regular day-to-day police work. They have 5 zones plus a special operations division that handles SWAT, STEP, K9, and other special units plus detectives.

 

[MTS2000des]

we have a sheriff and police because that is how Georgia government works. The sheriff is a constitutional office (by state constitution all 159 counties have a sheriff's office, and the sheriff is an ELECTED official). EVERY county in this state has it's own county sheriff's office. In many areas, the sheriff's office also provide patrol services and are the only law enforcement. This is the case in most places outside major metro areas in the state.

County police are formed by the county government and operate under the authority of that county's commission. To form a county police it takes a quorum of the citizens who want the services from a vote referendum, and an act of the state legislature to authorize the creation of said agency. County police answer to the board of commissioners, and the chief of said agency is APPOINTED by the commission or in some counties, a county manager or CEO makes that appointment. The formation of such agencies are usually done in heavily populated areas that require large patrols zones and usually because the citizens want it. The sheriff's office in those areas often provide additional resources and specialized units (as in Cobb county with our MCS drug task force, SWAT, and check fraud unit are examples of units run by the SO) in addition to their constitutional duties of providing courthouse security and running the county jail.

as a side note, the sheriff is the highest law enforcement officer in any county in this state, per state law under the Georgia constitution. All sheriff's and deputies are POST certified and have full arrest powers anywhere in the state of Georgia.

 

[b7spectra]

Or you could be like the City of Jacksonville. It's the Office of the Sheriff, but it's the Jacksonville Police Department!

 

[procopper7005]

The majority of GA is still served by a Sheriff's Department or a City Police force. Other than metro Atlanta there are only a few counties with county police departments.
The county police model was created to give more control over law enforcement to the county commissioners which are elected by the people than to one person.
You can only imagine the politics which influence the criminal justice system in rural GA. I know of one county near Athens that allows the probation violators who are serving jail time to walk to the gas station and buy the jailers food.
In another rural county they would let anyone who could pay out on the weekends. Ive actually arrested someone who was supposed to be in jail on a $50,000 bond for a drug charge. (this county consisted of one sheriff and his 8 deputies to cover 500 square miles, need a deputy at 2 am, 911 center has to page him from his home...seriously and this is 2010) I dont think most people realize how rurual most of GA is.
and this is why powers have been taken or defunded from many sheriff's offices.