The Harris County Sheriff's Office (HCSO) is a local

law enforcement agency A law enforcement agency (LEA) is any government agency responsible for law enforcement within a specific jurisdiction through the employment and deployment of law enforcement officers and their resources. The most common type of law enforcement ...

serving the over four million citizens of

Harris County, Texas Harris County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 4,731,145, and was estimated to be 5,009,302 in 2024, making it the List of counties in Texas, most populous cou ...

, United States. It is headquartered on the first and second floors in the 1200 Baker Street Jail in

Downtown Houston Downtown is the largest central business district in the city of Houston and the largest in the state of Texas, located near the geographic center of the metropolitan area at the confluence of Interstate 10 in Texas, Interstate 10, Interstate 45 ...

. As of the 2010 U.S. census, the county had a population of 4.1 million, making it the most populous county in Texas and the third most populous county in the United States. Its county seat is Houston. The Harris County Sheriff's Office has approximately 3,500 employees and is the largest

sheriff A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland, the , which is common ...

's office in the state of Texas and the sixth largest in the nation. The number one and two largest sheriff's offices in the nation are respectively the

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD), officially the County of Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, is a law enforcement agency serving Los Angeles County, California. LASD is the largest sheriff's department in the United States a ...

in California and the Cook County Sheriff's Office in Illinois. The third, fourth, and fifth are the Broward County Sheriff's Office in Florida, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office in Florida, and the San Diego County Sheriff's Office in California. The Harris County Sheriff's Office is the primary law enforcement agency in the of

unincorporated area An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

of Harris County, serving as the equivalent of the county police for the approximately 1,071,485 people living in the unincorporated areas of the county. In Texas, sheriffs and their deputies are fully empowered peace officers with county-wide jurisdiction and thus, may legally exercise their authority in unincorporated and incorporated areas of their county; they primarily provide law enforcement services for only the unincorporated areas of a county, while yielding to municipal police or city marshals to provide law enforcement services for the incorporated areas. Sheriffs and their deputies also have statewide warrantless arrest powers for any criminal offense (except certain traffic offenses) committed within their presence or view. They also may make arrests with a warrant anywhere in the state. In an emergency, sheriffs along with mayors and district judges are empowered by state law to call forth the

National Guard National guard is the name used by a wide variety of current and historical uniformed organizations in different countries. The original National Guard was formed during the French Revolution around a cadre of defectors from the French Guards. ...

to preserve the peace. The jurisdiction of the Harris County Sheriff's Office often overlaps with several other law enforcement agencies, among them the

Texas Highway Patrol The Texas Highway Patrol is a division of the Texas Department of Public Safety and is the largest state-level law enforcement agency in the U.S. state of Texas. The patrol's primary duties are enforcement of state traffic laws and commercial moto ...

, the eight Harris County Constable Precincts, and several municipal police agencies including the city of Houston Police Department. The duties of a Texas sheriff generally include keeping the county jail, providing bailiffs for the county and district courts within his county and serving process issued by said courts, and providing general law enforcement services to residents. The current sheriff of Harris County is Ed Gonzalez, elected in 2016 and has been in office since January 1, 2017.

History

John Moore was sworn in as the first sheriff of what was then called Harrisburg County (later renamed Harris County) in February 1837. Among the oldest law enforcement agencies in Texas, the department has grown from a single man on horseback to a modern agency with 3500 employees, including over 2500 sworn officers. On May 31, 2017, John Hernandez died after being placed in a choke hold after a fight by officers Terry Thompson and Chauna Thompson, a married couple. The death was ruled a homicide by the Harris County medical examiner on June 6, 2017, and both Thompsons were charged with murder. In 2025, four of the department's deputies committed suicide in the space of four weeks, prompting national coverage.

Sheriffs

Harris County sheriffs:

Fallen officers

Since the establishment of the Harris County Sheriff's Department, 45 officers have died in the line of duty.

Correction facilities

The Harris County Sheriff's Office's correction facilities are located in

, all within a block of one another. They include the 1200 Jail (located at 1200 Baker Street),Medical
." Harris County Sheriff's Office. Retrieved on May 28, 2010. the 701 Jail,
" Harris County Sheriff's Office. Retrieved on May 28, 2010. and the 1307 Jail.The 1307 Jail
," Harris County Sheriff's Office. Retrieved on May 28, 2010. Previously 1301 Franklin and 301 San Jacinto were jails.
" Harris County Sheriff's Office. February 22, 2003. Retrieved on May 28, 2010.
" Harris County Sheriff's Office. Retrieved on May 28, 2010. the Harris County jail facilities together have a capacity for 9,434 inmates; at time they have held over 12,000. Due to the excess number of prisoners, the HCSO had to ship inmates to other jails, including some in

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

; in June 2010 1,600 Harris County inmates were serving time at other jails. By January 2012 the Harris County jails had 8,573, a decrease by 31% from 2008 to 2012, and there were only 21 inmates serving time in other jail facilities, all in Texas. The county opened the Atascocita boot camp in 1991, but it closed in September 2004 as the county decided that its rehabilitation value was questionable. The vocational programs, once at the camp, were transferred to the Downtown area. On February 15, 2023, the

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

opened a federal civil rights investigation into the jail after dozens of inmate deaths in the past few years: 21 in 2021, 28 in 2022, and 4 in the first two months of 2023.

References

External links

Harris County Sheriff's Office Website
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Recruiting Video
{{Authority control Sheriff's Office Sheriffs' departments of Texas