Criminal Justice & Popular Culture

They Shot the Sheriff: Part Two

Social power, tyranny and the limits of justice

“I hear that train a comin’. It’s rollin’ ‘round the bend…” There are few things more quintessentially Southern than the sound of a distant locomotive or a song by Arkansas native, Johhny Cash. Photo: Author. Taken at the Arkansas Railroad Museum in Pine Bluff.

In the first part of this essay, we traced the development of the Southern sheriff archetype in popular culture. Just the term itself, ‘Southern sheriff’ conjures a very specific image. The image is often of a white, male, who’s a bit overweight…