-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
Summary | Discuss | Reviews | More Information | Read-Alikes
How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy
by Jessica Pishko
A leading authority on sheriffs investigates the impunity with which they police their communities, alongside the troubling role they play in American life, law enforcement, and, increasingly, national politics.
The figure of the American sheriff has loomed large in popular imagination, though given the outsize jurisdiction sheriffs have over people's lives, the office of sheriffs remains a gravely under-examined institution. Locally elected, largely unaccountable, and difficult to remove, the country's over three thousand sheriffs, mostly white men, wield immense power—making arrests, running county jails, enforcing evictions and immigration laws—with a quarter of all U.S. law enforcement officers reporting to them. In recent years there's been a revival of "constitutional sheriffs," who assert that their authority supersedes that of legislatures, courts, and even the president. They've protested federal mask and vaccine mandates and gun regulations, railed against police reforms, and, ultimately, declared themselves election police, with many endorsing the "Big Lie" of a stolen presidential election. They are embraced by far-right militia groups, white nationalists, the Claremont Institute, and former president Donald Trump, who sees them as allies in mass deportation and border policing.
How did a group of law enforcement officers decide that they were "above the law?" What are the stakes for local and national politics, and for America as a multi-racial democracy?
Blending investigative reporting, historical research, and political analysis, author Jessica Pishko takes us to the roots of why sheriffs have become a flashpoint in the current politics of toxic masculinity, guns, white supremacy, and rural resentment, and uncovers how sheriffs have effectively evaded accountability since the nation's founding.
A must-read for fans of Michelle Alexander, Gilbert King, Elizabeth Hinton, and Kathleen Belew.
What are you reading this week? (7/24/2025)
...spectives. Listening to A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst. A true story of a couple who survived being lost at sea for over 100 days. Just started The Highest Law in the Land by Jessica Pishko about constitutional sheriffs—a look at right wing extremism in law enforcement.
-Anne_Glasgow
"A damning exposé of the rise of "constitutional sheriffs," a law unto themselves.... A fluent, well-reasoned contribution to the movement to reform policing in America." —Kirkus Reviews
"The dangerous implications of [the "constitutional sheriff"] animate Pishko's sober, fascinating analysis." —Booklist
"As this nation seeks to make sense of the alarming rise of far-right extremism as well as the excessive power and everyday abuses of law enforcement, Pishko's latest study of American sheriffs is a startling must-read. As she makes clear, these threats to our democracy are inexorably connected—sharing not just insidious ideologies and ugly practices, but also extraordinary power and popularity. That local sheriffs drive this recent and most pressing danger is something that we overlook at our peril." —Heather Ann Thompson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy
"Blending superb reportage and indispensable history, Jessica Pishko's book could not be more timely. The Highest Law in the Land is essential reading for anyone concerned about the unbridled power of law enforcement in 21st Century America. An absolutely fascinating and harrowing read." —Gilbert King, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Devil in the Grove
"Deeply researched, wide-ranging, and explosive, The Highest Law in the Land lays bare the troubling history of the fringe movements whose self-proclaimed authority and unorthodox interpretations of the Constitution are threatening to enter mainstream American political life. Jessica Pishko has delivered a most timely read for our troubled times." —Scott Ellsworth, author of National Book Award Finalist The Ground Breaking: The Tulsa Race Massacre and An American City's Search for Justice
This information about The Highest Law in the Land was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jessica Pishko is a journalist and lawyer with a JD from Harvard Law School and an MFA from Columbia University. She has been reporting on the criminal legal system for a decade, with a focus on the political power of sheriffs since 2016. In addition to her newsletter Posse Comitatus, her writings have been featured in The New York Times, Politico, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, The Appeal, Slate, and Democracy Docket. She has been awarded journalism fellowships from the Pulitzer Center and Type Investigations and was a 2022 New America Fellow. A longtime Texas resident, she currently lives with her family in North Carolina.
If you liked The Highest Law in the Land, try these:
by S. A. Cosby
Published 2024
The new novel from New York Times bestselling and Los Angeles Times Book Prize-winning author S. A. Cosby, "one of the most muscular, distinctive, grab-you-by-both-ears voices in American crime fiction." —Washington Post.
by Ioan Grillo
Published 2023
The gun control debate is revived with every mass shooting. But far more people die from gun deaths on the street corners of inner city America and across the border as Mexico's powerful cartels battle to control the drug trade.
by Anthony McCann
Published 2019
An "epic exploration" of the 2016 right-wing Oregon Occupation - "an excellent microcosm by which we might better understand our difficult national history and distressing political moment" (Maggie Nelson).
We have to abandon the idea that schooling is something restricted to youth...
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
