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For years, there has existed a gap in academic research on county sheriffs in their role in rural law enforcement. However, the image of the county sheriff has been caricatured perennially on the silver screen, ie, in films. This study, rooted in cultivation theory, uses qualitative film analysis in an attempt to identify common themes and heuristics in media portrayals of the sheriff. After identifying these themes, we explore the implications of these portrayals for public perceptions of the sheriff as a professional law enforcement officer and as an elected official. We argue that the sheriff serves as a symbol of rural America — and conclude by discussing the implications of this phenomenon and how it might be ameliorated by more intense research focused on the sheriff.

While almost all local government administrators frequently interact with municipal police chiefs and county sheriffs, there is a dearth of scholarly literature concerning the decision-making behaviours of these law enforcement executives. This study, as part of a larger project, explores decision-making as it pertains to the annual budgeting process, an important basis for county- or city-wide interaction. The central question of this study is: what is the effect of selection method on a local law enforcement manager's willingness to cooperate with a legislative body during a budget crisis? This exploratory research suggests that the disparate methods by which sheriffs and police chiefs obtain office (election versus appointment) play a role in each executive's decision-making behaviours, albeit in a counterintuitive way: sheriffs are more apt to demonstrate local government leadership through cooperation with the county legislature while police chiefs are more likely to focus their efforts on intradepartmental management.

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