Chief of police
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Chief of Police in United States usage is the title typically given to the head of a police department. Similar alternate titles include Commissioner. In contrast to a sheriff, who is generally elected by the voters of a county, chiefs of police usually are municipal employees who owe their allegiance to a city. Often they are appointed by the mayor of a city; conversely they may be appointed by or subject to the confirmation of a police commission. In some jurisdictions all police officers, including the chief, are under the protection of civil service regulations. In some jurisdictions the head of the police commission is in fact the leader of the police and holds a position analogous or similar to the one described here, in which case he or she is referred to as Commissioner. New York City Police Department, NYPD, has both a Police Commissioner and a Chief, formerly called the Chief Inspector but now called the Chief of Department.
The constitutions of all U.S. states (except Connecticut, which has no sheriffs, and Hawaii, which has a State Sheriff) require every county to have a sheriff; some make no provision for this position to be eliminated even in the case of the formation of a consolidated city-county or "metropolitan government". In this case, a decision must be made about how to divide the powers between the county sheriff and the city chief of police. The usual compromise is one which allows the chief of police to exercise law enforcement jursidiction and to give the sheriff and his or her deputies authority over jails; an alternative and lesser-used solution is to make the office of sheriff a purely ceremonial one.
A police chief may in a small town be the only paid employee of the police department and have a staff consisting only of volunteers, when available; conversely the police chief of a major city may have thousands (or in the case of very large cities such as New York City and Los Angeles, tens of thousands) of sworn officers and thousands more civilian employees under his or her command. So it is very obvious that the qualifications and skills required to be a police chief vary widely. Another important consideration is how overtly a police department is influenced by politics, which varies greatly from one jurisdiction to another. Increasingly, all U.S. law enforcement officers, including small-town police chiefs and their charges, are being required to meet at least minimum levels of professional training to an extent that was unknown even a few decades ago.