Gloucester Sheriff Darrell Warren questioned numbers related to his office that were included in an article in the Gazette-Journal on Jan. 25. That article discussed Mathews Sheriff April Edwards’s appearance before the Mathews Board of Supervisors on Jan. 23 to request additional funding for two full-time deputies.
In requesting the funding, Edwards compared the number of sworn deputies in Mathews to the number of sworn deputies in Gloucester and other counties. She said that, while Mathews has one sworn deputy for every 711 people, Gloucester has one sworn deputy for every 420 people.Warren said that the per-capita figure for Gloucester is incorrect because it includes the total number of sworn deputies, including personnel that are hired only to work in the jail and courts.
“You must compare apples to apples and only include law enforcement deputies/officers,” he said. “You can’t include jail deputies when the other localities aren’t responsible for corrections. It isn’t a true cove...