EDS: Cronkite School journalists profiled candidates for Phoenix City Council and the Maricopa County sheriff race. You can find all the profiles here. 

By Emily Holshouser
Special for Cronkite News

• Candidate name: Jerry Sheridan
• Political affiliation: Republican
• Position sought: Maricopa County Sheriff
• Age: 66
• Career: Law enforcement

Jerry Sheridan is the Republican candidate for Maricopa County Sheriff. A 40-year veteran of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, Sheridan is known mainly for the 20 years he spent as former sheriff Joe Arpaio’s right-hand man.

Sheridan is running for a second time after losing to Paul Penzone in 2020. In that election, he defeated Arpaio in the Republican primary.

The latest campaign filings show Sheridan has spent $292,318 as of July 13, while Kamp has spent $23,766. The next cash activity reports are due Oct. 15 for the third quarter.

In 1977, he graduated from the training academy and later began working as an MCSO deputy. He worked under four sheriffs across 40 years during his time in the department.

Sheridan rose through the ranks, becoming a captain in the 1990s and overseeing areas of greater Maricopa County, including Sun City and Wickenburg.

In the late 1990s, Sheridan was promoted to chief of custody, overseeing the Maricopa County jail system.

Sheridan has made jail conditions a key component of his campaign, primarily focusing on preventing in-custody deaths and stopping the flow of drugs into jails.

In August, The Arizona Republic published an investigation into in-custody deaths in Maricopa County jails. That investigation found that between 2019 and 2023, the death rate in Maricopa County jails was among the highest in the country.

“To improve the safety and security of our detention system, I will reinstate the policies and procedures that we used to prevent in-custody deaths in several ways,” Sheridan said in written answers to questions sent to his campaign for this story. “For starters, focus on suicide awareness with detention officers. We made this a top priority with officers by training them to be on the lookout for signs of a person that has the potential to harm themselves.”

The Arizona Republic investigation found a record number of suicides in Maricopa County jails in 2022. That year, 43 people died in the jails, a quarter of them dying by suicide.

“These numbers are indefensible and outrageous,” Sheridan said.

In 2010, then-Sheriff Joe Arpaio asked Sheridan to become deputy chief. He then held that job under Paul Penzone, who was elected in 2016 and replaced Arpaio.

During his time as deputy chief, Sheridan was embroiled in every controversy that hit the department. Arpaio’s long tenure saw litigation and controversy, including the practice of racial profiling.

Echoes of Tent City

In 1990, Arpaio opened an outdoor prison, where inmates wore traditional black-and-white prison jumpsuits and slept in cots under massive tents in the Arizona heat. The move was meant to serve as an example of Arpaio’s tough-on-crime agenda.

The prison, dubbed “Tent City,” was the center of enormous controversy, even though Arpaio and his allies frequently showed it off to reporters.

Sheridan ran Tent City for several years. On the campaign trail, he has boasted about Tent City and vowed to reinstate the idea of outdoor prisons.

“I would say that 90% – not everybody, but 90% – of the inmates that were in Tent City loved to be there,” Sheridan said during a recent debate with his Democratic opponent Tyler Kamp. “What I would do is bring back a similar type of housing … there’s no way I could bring Tent City back, but the reason I want to do that is because it plays a key role in the management of the entire jail population.”

Sheridan, in his written answers to questions for this story, said that Tent City helped boost employment numbers and that closing it contributed to the current staffing crisis.

“The changes made to our detention system by the previous sheriff contributed to this crisis as well,” Sheridan said. “Namely, the closing of Tent City. That facility provided for a system where low-level offenders and trustees could be placed in one area while violent offenders were housed in more hardened facilities. This design prevented contraband entering the brick-and-mortar jails.”

The Brady List and a new path forward

Sheridan and Arpaio have been allies for most of Sheridan’s career. Sheridan credits Arpaio with his initial promotion in the department. However, their relationship has appeared to degrade after Sheridan ran against Arpaio in 2020.

Arpaio didn’t endorse Sheridan in the 2024 primary election and has endorsed neither him nor Kamp in the general election.

But Sheridan is clear: Even though he spent much of his career under Arpaio, his administration would belong to him.

“I am not Joe Arpaio,” he said during an interview with 12News in August.

Whomever is elected sheriff will be responsible for shepherding the office out of a decade-long court monitorship. A 2008 lawsuit accused the sheriff’s office of targeting Latino drivers in traffic stops. U.S. District Court Judge Murray Snow ruled for court oversight in 2013.

Kamp holds Sheridan complicit in the office’s controversial practices and litigation, which has cost county taxpayers more than $300 million, the Associated Press reported in May. Sheridan points to Kamp’s own personnel record while he worked for the Phoenix Police Department. That record includes accusations of sexual misconduct and inappropriate use of agency property.

During the Melendres v. Arpaio class-action lawsuit, Sheridan was found to be in civil contempt of court for his behavior during the investigation.

Sheridan was found to have violated court orders, including an injunction meant to prevent MCSO deputies from conducting traffic stops that targeted undocumented immigrants.

In videos surfaced during an investigation by ABC15, Sheridan admitted to not looking at emails so that he wouldn’t have to answer legal questions about the case.

Sheridan was convicted of contempt of court for that behavior and filed an appeal saying that he should not be held accountable for it because he retired. The judge handling the case denied his appeal.

That landed Sheridan on the Brady List, a statewide database of police officers with histories of credibility issues.

“I believe I should be removed from the list because I don’t belong there,” Sheridan said in his written answers. “At a minimum, I believe my due process rights were violated.”

Sheridan has spoken frequently about bringing officers back to the department. Amid major difficulties in hiring and retaining police officers, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is now offering $7,500 signing bonuses and other incentives for new detention officers – which it’s about 800 short of, according to an Arizona Republic investigation.

“Any successful large organization is led from the top,” Sheridan said. “As sheriff, I’lll bring some leadership qualities that I learned from working there for 40 years. So many deputies and detention officers have told me during this campaign that they would come back to work for MCSO if I am elected.”

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