In the office of Baltimore Sheriff John W. Anderson hangs an autographed photograph of former Gov. William Donald Schaefer, who first appointed Anderson to the role in 1989. There are plaques and trophies and photos of the sheriff with political leaders from his decades in office. There is even a bible marked with sticky notes on the sheriff’s glossy desk. But one thing you will not find in Anderson’s office is a computer.
“This is the way I operate,” said Anderson, 75, the state’s longest serving sheriff. “If I need something, I have Ms. Ware. She’s capable.” Indeed his assistant, Jaqueline Ware, functions as a sort of human Alexa, hurrying to the sheriff’s inner sanctum to field questions– for example, how many deputies are currently in the department?– scurrying to her desk to look up the figure on her computer, and returning with the answer: 105.
Anderson is running for his ninth term as sheriff, a position that many city voters give little thought to. But his challenger, Sam Cogen, a former top deputy, would like to change that. Cogen, 48, believes that the sheriff’s office could and should take a more active role in reducing violent crime in the city, in part by adopting modern technology to make the office more efficient.
“People don’t know who the sheriff is. They don’t know what the sheriff’s office does. There’s a lack of accountability. There’s a lack of transparency. Other jurisdictions have modernized their sheriff’s offices,” said Cogen. “Why haven’t we?”
But Anderson believes the sheriff’s office is running just fine. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” he said. “What I’m most proud of is the image we have here. We are well-respected by the judiciary, well-respected by the public. We are a community-oriented agency.”
The powers of a sheriff vary widely by county. In some places, the sheriff is the sole law enforcement power. In Baltimore City, however, the police handle most of those duties. Here the sheriff supervises courthouse security, transports prisoners to and from the court buildings, serves warrants and domestic violence protective orders and enforces evictions.
The tradition of an elected sheriff stretches back hundreds of years, according to Patrick Royal, a spokesperson for the National Association of Sheriffs. The first sheriffs enforced the king’s laws in British shires. They were originally called “shire reeves,” a term that morphed into “sheriff.” Maryland holds a key role in establishing the tradition of sheriffs in this country. The first sheriff in the New World was appointed in St. Mary’s County in 1634, according to the Maryland Association of Sheriffs. Since 1867, the state constitution has required that all sheriffs be elected, so they answer to the public.
In Maryland, as in many other jurisdictions, there are no limits on the amount of time a sheriff can hold office. While Anderson is the longest-serving sheriff in the state, several Maryland sheriffs have held their office for 15 or 20 years. And Anderson is practically a newcomer compared to some of his colleagues around the country. The sheriff of San Miguel County, Colorado has held been in office for 41 years. The sheriff of Houston County, Georgia, who is nearing 90, has served in his role since 1972– a half of a century. “It’s not uncommon for sheriffs who are elected to be in office for long periods of time because they understand the office and their constituents trust them,” said Royal of the National Sheriffs’ Association.
Cogen, however, believes it is time for new leadership in the sheriff’s office. A Philadelphia native, he moved to Maryland in 1991 and worked as a paramedic before starting classes at Goucher College, where he graduated in 1997 with a degree in sociology with an emphasis on criminal justice studies. He completed an internship with the city sheriff’s department and then took a job there after graduation. He quickly rose through the ranks in the sheriff’s office, becoming the first deputy to teach in the Baltimore police academy. He completed a fellowship with the National Police Academy’s Institute for Integrity in Leadership and Professionalism in Policing. He also served as president of the sheriff’s deputies’ union, represented Baltimore in the Maryland Association of Sheriffs and was his department’s representative at Baltimore’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. Within the department, he was promoted eight times and became Anderson’s chief deputy and worked with the state legislature for the sheriff’s department to gain the power to handle domestic violence orders. Previously, about 10 percent of domestic violence orders were served, he said. After the change, more than three-quarters were, he said.
Cogen retired from the sheriff’s department in November, because he thought it would cause a distraction if he were campaigning against his boss, he said. He serves as president of the South Baltimore Neighborhood Association and is the public safety chair of Federal Hill Main Street.
Anderson grew up in Baltimore and graduated from City College High School in 1965. He spent two years in the U.S. Air Force and then graduated from what is now called Towson University with a degree in Criminial Justice in 1978. He joined the sheriff’s office in 1972 and was promoted to supervisor deputy sheriff in 1980, a role he held until Schaefer appointed him to finish out the term of the previous sheriff in 1989.
Cogen strongly believes that better technology would help the sheriff’s office run more effectively. The office uses paper time sheets to track hours, xeroxed papers to set schedules and software that has been largely unchanged since the 1980′s, he said. Information about warrants is entered by hand in spreadsheets that are not cross-linked. That means that deputies might be assigned to serve a domestic violence order at a particular address and not be aware that there is an outstanding bench warrant at the same address. Moreover, he said, the current system does not flag repeat violent offenders. Deputies are not informed if the person to whom they are slated to serve a warrant has a history of violence. In additon, at any given time, there is a backlog of at least 1,000 warrants.