Maricopa County Sheriff-elect talks staffing, jails, Tent City, crime prevention

PHOENIX — The man elected to be Maricopa County’s next sheriff said his top priorities are bringing in good leaders and cutting the department’s staffing shortage.

Republican Jerry Sheridan will take the reins of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office after defeating Democrat Tyler Kamp.

“Running for office isn’t for the faint-hearted or lazy,” Sheridan told KTAR News 92.3 FM last week. “Now that I am the sheriff-elect, it is yet to sink in.”

Why is staffing a priority for Maricopa County’s next sheriff?

Keeping the office fully staffed has been a struggle since the COVID-19 pandemic. Before it, MCSO had 30 vacancies and neared 100% staffing.

Now, it’s short 1,300 to 1,400 officers, Sheridan said.

“I want to make things better for the employees. They feel like they have been forgotten by the current administration,” he said.

Sheridan, a 40-year veteran of the MCSO, has seen the office go through controversial ups and downs.

Currently, MCSO is led by Russ Skinner, who was appointed as the interim sheriff in February after Democrat Paul Penzone left the office with a year left on his second term.

Penzone cited one of the reasons for his departure as the difficulty of satisfying court orders that MCSO overhaul its traffic enforcement and internal affairs operations.

These orders date back to 2013, when a court found that MCSO engaged in a pattern of racially profiling Latino drivers during traffic stops while Joe Arpaio was sheriff. In 2017, Arpaio was found guilty on a misdemeanor charge of criminal contempt for ignoring the order, although his conviction was later pardoned by President Donald Trump.

Sheridan, Arpaio’s former chief deputy, said he worked to help MCSO meet the court’s expectations.

“I worked very closely with the monitor for the last three years of my career to set the foundation for future compliance,” Sheridan said. “This administration has done a good job in continuing with that.”

However, he sees a lot of room for improvement. One of them is prioritizing employee feedback and finding ways to make their jobs easier.

“One of my main goals is to go out and meet the people on the road, the deputies on the street, the detention officers in the jail and the civilian employees,” Sheridan said.

Maricopa County Sheriff election 2024 winner talks ‘Tent City’

Another controversy tied to Arpaio’s tenure involves the infamous Tent City, which Penzone shut down after ousting Arpaio in the 2016 election.

Sheridan said the outdoor jail, which Arpaio opened in 1993, was beneficial in that it helped inmates stay employed while in custody. He’d like to revive the concept, but without using tents for housing.

“It allowed us to have work release, work furlough, which really worked to keep people on their jobs,” Sheridan said. “That’s what I want to bring back — that type of facility where it’s basically housing and a barracks, or some type of structure.”

KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Balin Overstolz McNair contributed to this report.