When Henry B. Steele became Lake County`s first elected sheriff, all he had was a badge, a six-shooter, a horse and 454 square miles of mostly farmland to protect.
Some 150 years later, Steele`s modern-day counterpart still might tote a gun, but the similarities end there.
Today`s sheriff is a high-tech administrator whose equipment includes electronic bracelets to keep track of prisoners. He oversees hundreds of workers, a modern jail, a special marine patrol and a $6 million budget, and he protects 109,000 residents in unincorporated areas that rapidly are becoming urbanized.
In part because of the growing roles played by sheriffs in several northern Illinois counties, combined with old-fashioned politics, the job is attracting attention in the upcoming Nov. 4 elections. Some of the sheriff`s races in the five-county area surrounding Chicago are developing into the most vitriolic of the countywide campaigns.
In Cook County, the sheriff`s race has been filled with charges of corruption in the department`s vice unit; in Kane County, disgruntled deputies have picketed the sheriff`s offices; and in Will County, there are reports that deputies are driving squad cars ready for the junk yard.
In Illinois a sheriff can be responsible for everything from running a jail to serving legal papers in civil lawsuits and from operating crime laboratories to providing janitorial services for county buildings.
Those responsibilities come on top of what officials say has been an increase in the number of calls for police protection from the unincorporated areas where sheriff units patrol. In some cases, crime rates in those areas are on the rise.
In Will County, the retirement of Sheriff John Shelley, a Republican, has sparked a hotly contested race between two deputies, Republican John Johnsen and Democrat Ikey Liker.
Johnsen, 42, is a lieutenant making his second attempt for the post, after an unsuccessful 1978 bid against Shelley. He also is a Lockport alderman and a 19-year veteran of the department.
Liker, 37, of Shorewood, has spent 15 years on the force as a deputy and lost to Shelley in 1982 by less than 1 percent of the vote.
The campaign has boiled down to who can do the best job of lifting the department`s sagging morale. Departmental feuding with the county board has brought on tough financial times and resulted in deputies driving squad cars some view as a safety hazard.
Iker estimates that 20 department cars have more than 120,000 miles and that on many ”you can push your finger through the rust.”
Shelley`s car, however, is a Cadillac seized by deputies as part of a drug raid. His use of the car, as well as the use of other vehicles seized in drug arrests, is one issue in the campaign. Johnsen and Iker vow they would not use the luxury car.
Johnsen maintains that the merit commission has all but eliminated politics in the office, but Iker disagrees.
He points to two studies on departmental hiring and promotional practices that conclude morale problems may be affected by departmental politics.
Both candidates are calling for a reorganization of the sheriff`s police patrols to better serve the growing populations in the unincorporated areas that are spread over the county`s 846 square miles. Iker contends that more urban-type crime is coming to unincorporated areas, even though state statistics show the crime rate decreasing.
”We are now experiencing all facets of violent crime during the 24-hour period,” he maintains.
In Lake County, Democratic challenger Sander P. Stagman is trying to wrest control of the post from Republican Robert ”Mickey” Babcox, one of the county`s top vote-getters who is seeking a second term. Stagman has accused Babcox of everything but causing Lake County`s recent flooding.
In a county where Republicans usually sweep most countywide races, Babcox, 58, of Grayslake, isn`t worried about the accusations.
”I don`t pay any attention to the charges,” said the former coroner who served in that post 18 years. ”I`m running on my record.”
Stagman, 43, of Highland Park, is a Chicago tax accountant who says he is a graduate of the Cook County Sheriff`s Academy and a student of criminology at Roosevelt University.
He charges that Babcox runs the office like a Southern sheriff, making
”Lake County known as the Macon, Ga., of the North.”
He has accused Babcox of botching the coroner`s investigation into the 1981 death of 28-year-old Kentucky Derby veterinarian Janice Runkle, who Stagman believes was a murder victim.
”That shows how much he knows,” said Babcox. ”A coroner`s jury ruled it was a suicide.”
Babcox contends that Stagman has fudged his credentials. He says Stagman has gone only to a training classes for Cook County bailiffs and that Stagman can`t be studying criminology, as he claims, because Roosevelt University offers no such degree.
Roosevelt said that it does not offer a degree in criminology but that it does offer a degree in sociology in which a student can concentrate in criminology.
The winner in Lake County will head a department that the county`s first sheriff, Steele, wouldn`t recognize. The 300-member force, which includes full-time and part-time deputies, operates a 168-bed jail, and 163 deputies patrol the streets, provide bailiff service for courtrooms and serve legal papers.
The county has one of the few sheriff`s department marine units, protecting boaters on the Chain-O-Lakes and Lake Michigan. It has a canine unit, snow mobile patrol and deputies who fly planes and helicopters during searches.
The department recently entered into a contract to provide a sheriff`s department squad car to patrol the Village of Riverwoods, an affluent town of 2,800 population that has no police force.
Babcox notes that many such small communities have formed in Lake County over the last two decades. And with urban crime now reaching into these areas, town leaders are looking for police protection.
”I think that is the new wave of the future,” said Babcox.
In Cook County, the race pitting incumbent Richard J. Elrod, 52, a Democrat, against former Chicago Police Supt. James O`Grady, 57, a Democrat turned Republican, has been a bitter verbal battle for control of the nation`s second-largest department, with an annual budget of more than $113 million.
In June, two top-ranking officials of the vice unit were convicted in federal court on charges of extortion and bribery for protecting suburban prostitution operations.
”The scandals have rocked his department for 16 years,” O`Grady said.
Elrod angrily contends that the scandals that have occurred during his tenure are no different than the problems O`Grady encountered when he headed the police department.
Kane County Sheriff George Kramer lost the Republican nomination in the March primary. The department abounds with morale problems. And the department`s starting salary for deputies is one of the lowest in the Chicago area, say the candidates vying for the job.
F. John Randall, 59, a lieutenant on the force and a Republican, is pitted against Democratic challenger Neal W. Lippold, 39, a criminal justice instructor at Waubonsee Community College in Sugar Grove.
”We`re going to improve services without increasing the budget,” said Randall, who wants to see more manpower patrolling the county`s 540 square miles.
But Lippold, the former Sugar Grove police chief and 5-year employee of the state Department of Corrections, says it is time for the voters to name an administrator to the post. He thinks the traditionally Republican Kane County constituents are willing to elect a Democrat because ”time and time again you hear of problems in the sheriff`s office,” he said.
In August, Kane County deputies, whose starting salary is $16,200 a year, picketed the county board over its refusal to allow them to vote on whether to join a union.
Lippold argues that the salaries must be restructured to boost the starting pay so the county`s best recruits don`t look elsewhere for jobs.
Like Babcox, Du Page County Sheriff Richard Paul Doria, 59, of Winfield, has the political advantage of running as a Republican in the predominantly GOP county. Doria, seeking his third, four-year stint as sheriff, faces Kenneth D. Fields, 50, of Naperville, a security guard who has done little campaigning.
