Jacksonville Sheriff's Office

The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office (JSO) is a joint city-county law enforcement agency, which has primary responsibility for law enforcement, investigation, and corrections within the consolidated City of Jacksonville and Duval County, Florida, United States. Duval County includes the incorporated cities of Jacksonville, Atlantic Beach, Baldwin, Jacksonville Beach, and Neptune Beach; the beach cities have their own police departments as well.

The sheriff's office also performs the corrections duties for the county. The current sheriff is Michael Williams, in office since July 1, 2015. Sheriff John T. Rutherford retired on June 30, 2015 and had been Sheriff since July 1, 2003. The JSO is one of the largest departments in the Southeastern United States, with 3,600 employees. Its headquarters is 501 E. Bay Street Jacksonville, Florida 32202.

Mission

According to the Sheriff's Office, its Mission is "To serve and protect in partnership with our community." The Vision of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office is "A crime-free environment, driven by partnerships with empowered citizens, fostering a vibrant community and the success of all individuals." The Core Values of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office are: "Always Improving; Community Focused; Respect for Each Other; and Worthy of Trust."

Sheriff

In principle, a sheriff is a legal official with responsibility for a "shire", i.e. county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country.

Jacksonville, Florida

Jacksonville is the largest city by population in the U.S. state of Florida, and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. It is the county seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968. Consolidation gave Jacksonville its great size and placed most of its metropolitan population within the city limits; with an estimated population of 853,382 in 2014, it is the most populous city proper in Florida and the Southeast, and the 12th most populous in the United States. Jacksonville is the principal city in the Jacksonville metropolitan area, with a population of 1,345,596 in 2010.

Jacksonville is in the First Coast region of northeast Florida and is centered on the banks of the St. Johns River, about 25 miles (40 km) south of the Georgia state line and about 340 miles (550 km) north of Miami. The Jacksonville Beaches communities are along the adjacent Atlantic coast. The area was originally inhabited by the Timucua people, and in 1564 was the site of the French colony of Fort Caroline, one of the earliest European settlements in what is now the continental United States. Under British rule, settlement grew at the narrow point in the river where cattle crossed, known as Wacca Pilatka to the Seminole and the Cow Ford to the British. A platted town was established there in 1822, a year after the United States gained Florida from Spain; it was named after Andrew Jackson, the first military governor of the Florida Territory and seventh President of the United States.

Police brutality

Police brutality is the deliberate use of excessive force, usually physical, carried out during law enforcement activities with the population. This type of behavior also includes verbal attacks and psychological intimidation by a police officer.

Widespread police brutality exists in many countries, even those that prosecute it. It is one of several forms of police misconduct, which include: false arrest; intimidation; racial profiling; political repression; surveillance abuse; sexual abuse; and police corruption. Although illegal, it can be performed under the color of law.

History

The word "brutality" has several meanings; the sense used here (savage cruelty) was first used in 1633. The term "police brutality" was in use in the American press as early as 1872, when the Chicago Tribune reported on the beating of a civilian under arrest at the Harrison Street Police Station.

The origin of 'modern' policing based on the authority of the nation state is commonly traced back to developments in seventeenth and 18th century France, with modern police departments being established in most nations by the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Cases of police brutality appear to have been frequent then, with "the routine bludgeoning of citizens by patrolmen armed with nightsticks or blackjacks." Large-scale incidents of brutality were associated with labor strikes, such as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, the Pullman Strike of 1894, the Lawrence textile strike of 1912, the Ludlow massacre of 1914, the Steel strike of 1919, and the Hanapepe massacre of 1924.