The Pima County Sheriff's Department (PCSD) is an American law enforcement agency that serves the unincorporated areas of Pima County, Arizona. It serves the seventh largest county in the nation. It operates six district offices and three smaller satellite offices. The Corrections Bureau has four facilities which houses on average 1,850 inmates per day.
The department employs about 516 sworn officers and more than 872 civilian employees and corrections personnel and utilizes the services of over 400 volunteers. Its headquarters is on East Benson Highway in Tucson, Arizona.
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Crime statistics
According to Federal Bureau of Investigation data in a media release by SCSD in 2012, Tucson has 631.94 violent crimes per 100,000 population, while Phoenix has 518.12 violent crimes per 100,000 population. The Tucson metropolitan area has the second lowest crime rate in the state of Arizona. The Pima County Sheriff's Department averages 4.3 minutes to respond to emergencies 90% of the time and the average response time to all emergencies is 5.3 minutes.
Sheriffs
Past sheriffs include Arizona pioneers such as Peter Rainsford Brady, Charles Alexander Shibell, Robert H. Paul, Robert Nelson Leatherwood, and Benjamin Franklin Daniels.
Edward F. Echols (1936–1946)
One of the most interesting of Pima County's sheriffs was Ed Echols. According to historian David Leighton, of the Arizona Daily Star newspaper, Ed Echols was born in Stockdale, Texas, in 1879. As a teenager he helped his father on cattle drives up the old Chisholm Trail. In 1902, along with his brother Art he traveled by wagon to Cochise County, Arizona, where he worked selling cords of wood and also as a ranch hand. Five years later he went on tour with the Miller Brothers 101 Wild West Show, touring cities like New York and Chicago. On the tour, he also befriended future film actor Tom Mix whom he would remain friends with for years to come.
In 1912, Echols traveled to Calgary, Alberta, Canada for the first Frontier Days and Cowboy Championship Contest (later the Calgary Stampede). He competed against the best ropers in the world and garnered the title of World's Champion Roper.
In 1921, he homesteaded land near Mescal, Arizona southeast of Tucson. It is believed this land became part of the larger Double X Ranch that he came to own. Three years later, Leighton Kramer, an Easterner who wintered in Tucson, Arizona conceived the idea of a rodeo and rodeo parade in Tucson and turned to Echols for advice on creation of the La Fiesta de Los Vaqueros. For his many years of involvement in the Tucson rodeo he would gain the nickname "Mr. Rodeo."
In 1934, Echols ran for sheriff of Pima County, even having his friend and movie star Will Rogers campaign for him, but still lost the election. Two years later he ran again and won.
From 1936 to 1946 Echols served as sheriff of Pima County. He chose Herb Wood as his undersheriff and when he first entered office he had only six deputies for the whole county. He brought the county jail up to standard and improved the office filing system. For the year 1939, he reported his men had recovered $30,408 of stolen property, transported 54 prisoners to the state prison in Florence, Arizona, and served 915 subpoenas.
By 1944, his staff had increased to 24 with 12 deputies in Tucson, 4 in Ajo, 1 in Marana, 1 in Arivaca, 3 jailers, 1 matron and 2 cooks. In 1946 he ran unsuccessfully for sheriff but later served many years as a constable, retiring in 1962. He died in 1969.
Clarence Dupnik (1980–2015)
Clarence Dupnik was the sheriff for over 35 years. A veteran of over 50 years in local law enforcement, he served as sheriff of Pima County from February 1980 till he retired in 2015; he was elected seven times. Dupnik saw the population of Pima County increase from 191,216 to about 1.5 million people. Dupnik's accomplishments are:
Oversaw the 1984 construction and implementation of one of the first direct-supervision correctional facilities in the nation. Direct-supervision facilities allow correctional staff to interact directly with inmates within housing units. This philosophy has resulted in reduced violence against staff and other inmates within the facility.
Created the vision and helped implement the plan to transition drug enforcement efforts into the Pima County/Tucson Metropolitan Counter Narcotics Alliance which involves several local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies.
Instituted mandatory drug testing for all Sheriff's Department applicants and a random drug testing program for all employees. With advancing technology, the mandatory drug testing program was expanded by adding hair testing for drugs. The Sheriff's Department was one of the first law enforcement agencies in the country to utilize hair testing as part of a drug testing program.
Served as a founding member of the Command Group of the Arizona Alliance Planning Committee – a joint effort between federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, in cooperation with the military, designed to reduce the influx of narcotics across the Southern Arizona border.
Organized a national and international award-winning crime-prevention program, using Arizona's first trained law-enforcement volunteers, later numbering more than 200 men and women operating in the Tucson, Green Valley, and Ajo communities. Volunteers provide public fingerprinting, crime scene security, traffic control, Neighborhood Watch administration, and preventive patrols in neighborhoods and county parks.
Oversaw the creation of the Pima Regional SWAT team. This became the largest, most capable tactical team in the state of Arizona and the only Federal Emergency Management Agency type 1 tactical team in the southern region of the United States. The Pima Regional SWAT team is a collaborative effort by officers from seven Pima County law enforcement agencies and medics from local emergency medical support agencies. The program includes several distinct elements: Tactical, Negotiations, EOD, Canine, and Tactical Emergency Medical Support (TEMS). These elements work together to resolve dangerous incidents that pose a risk to the lives of the residents of Pima County.
Chris Nanos (2015–2017, since 2021)
Deputy Sheriff Chris Nanos took over as Sheriff on August 1, 2015.
Nanos has been with the department since 1984. He has worked in all fields of the Sheriff's Department. Nanos has faced multiple controversies relating to his time at the El Paso Police Department, where he resigned in 1982. He faced accusations of excessive force, off duty gambling, improper use of his siren, and tardiness. He is also accused of kicking a suspect in the head hard enough the suspect required hospitalization.