Law Enforcement

Mission Statement

It is the mission of the Calhoun County Sheriff’s Office, Law Enforcement Division, to prevent and investigate crime, maintain public order, enhance the public safety and provide quality services so that citizens perceive the county as safe and feel minimally affected by crime. This will be achieved through innovative leadership, partnerships with citizens, and by empowering employees.
 

General Information

The Law Enforcement Division of the Calhoun County Sheriff’s Office provides policing service to the public in areas of the county that are not policed by other agencies. This service includes answering calls for service, both criminal and civil, traffic enforcement and investigation, marine patrol, dog control, criminal investigations, crime prevention and public safety education. The division is based in one building located in the county seat of Marshall, and is made up of patrol officers, detectives, sergeants and a division commander, with the rank of lieutenant. All members of the division are deputy sheriff's, sworn law enforcement officers that are employed by the county and accountable to the sheriff. The department only requires a high school education to apply, however, to be assigned to law enforcement the individual must be a certified law enforcement officer through the state of Michigan. Each year individual officers receive in-service training for updating skills and knowledge. This is tracked and coordinated by the divisional commander.
 
The division consists of twenty full time officers, a detective, four sergeants and a lieutenant. In comparison to other law enforcement agencies the division is medium in size for staffing, however, a comparison to the business community would be considered small. The division functions on a seven day a week 24-hour basis in serving the community. Members work three 8-hour shifts and staff is scheduled for two consecutive days off based on seniority choice for the shift worked.
 
The officers are faced with a virtual myriad of possible situations where he/she is expected to have a working knowledge of the law, how to apply it, as well as have extraordinary people skills. Officers are challenged to be generalists in every area of the profession. This may include crime detection and prevention, crime scene processing, knowledge of the law both civil and criminal, adeptness in communication spoken and written, being a politician and a professional driver able and expected to make life and death decisions at the blink of an eye.
 
Teamwork is stressed, within the division in order to provide the highest quality service to the community of Calhoun County.