- Corporate body
- 1900-1959
The Organic Act of 1900 renamed the Marshal of the Hawaiian Islands as the High Sheriff and sustained the existing organization and functions of the police. Act 35 of 1905 (the "County Act") established counties within the Territory of Hawai‘i. The result of Act 39 was the place the island sheriffs within county governments and subordinate to the respective boards of supervisors, rather than to the High Sheriff. Another results was that the High Sheriff ceased concurrently to be the Sheriff of Oahu. The High Sheriff retained responsibility to appoint jailors for Oahu Prison and other territorial-level confinement facilities. At the same time, Act 41 of 1905 established boards of prison inspectors for each
judicial circuit, and made the boards responsible for jails and prisons within their circuits.
The High Sheriff was made responsible to the Board of Prison Inspectors of the First Judicial Circuit for Oahu Prison, and he was potentially responsible to other boards for territorial-level prison facilities in other circuits. The High Sheriff was de facto Warden of Oahu Prison, and he was indexed as such in the Revised Laws of Hawaii, 1925, although he was never designated as such by statute. That situation was changed by Act 17, 1st Special Session, 1932, which created a separate office of Warden of Oahu Prison and removed from the High Sheriff the responsibility for territorial prisons and prisoners. The High Sheriff continued as the Chief of Police of the Territory, responsible for the public peace, the arrest of fugitives, etc., until 1959, when his office was abolished by Act l, 2nd Special Session, 1959 (the "Reorganization Act").