There are about 3,500 County Sheriff's Offices in the United States ranging from 1 or 2 man forces to the 11,000 member Los Angeles County Sheriff's Dept.

The federal equivalent to the office of sheriff is the United States Marshals Service, an agency of the United States Department of Justice. The sheriff also often conducts auction sales of real property in foreclosure in many jurisdictions, and is often also empowered to conduct seizures of chattel property that is being seized to satisfy a judgment. In many US jurisdictions, the sheriff also has duties with regard to service of process and summonses that are issued by state courts. In some counties, the sheriff can be the most powerful figure, but in other jurisdictions the sheriff may do little more than providing such services as keeping the jail, transporting prisoners, and providing courthouse security. In the US, the relationship between the sheriff and other police departments varies widely from State to State, and indeed in some states from county to county. This is akin to the deputy chief of police position of a police department. The second-in-command of the department is sometimes called an Under Sheriff. They may be subdivided into general deputies and special deputies. All law-enforcement officers working for the agency headed by a sheriff are called '''sheriff's deputies or deputy sheriffs and are so called because they are deputized by the sheriff to perform the same duties as him or her. The political election of a person to serve as a police leader is a uniquely American tradition.

In the United States a sheriff is generally, but not always, the highest elected law-enforcement officer of a county. The most famous holder of this office was the folkloric Sheriff of Nottingham, enemy of Robin Hood. The office eventually returned to the title 'Sheriff', and 'Viscount' became an inherited title of nobility. The office of sheriff was continued after the Norman Conquest, and then known as a viscount. A high-ranking official, the ''shire-reeve'' was the representative of the royal authority in a ''shire'' or ''county''. In Anglo-Saxon England, a ''reeve'' was an officer who was appointed by the king to be responsible for the public business of the locality. Like the word ''sheriff'' itself, the office of sheriff has an interesting history. The office of Sheriff is the oldest law enforcement system known, being acknowledged as far back in antiquity as 600 B.C.

Sherriff of nottingham calculator