Los Angeles County Sheriff Leroy D. Baca has been named as the 2013 Ferris E. Lucas Award for Sheriff of the Year winner by the National Sheriff’s Association (NSA), according to a release from the sheriff’s department.
The award will be presented to him at an the NSA’s annual conference in Charlotte, N.C. on June 23. The officer of the year award recognizes a sheriff for making contributions “to improve the Office of Sheriff on the local, state, and national levels, and for involvement in the community above and beyond the responsibilities required,” according to the release.
Baca has been the Chief Law Enforcement Officer in Los Angeles County since he was elected in 1998. He is also a United States Marine Corps Reserve veteran who earned his doctorate in public administration from the University of Southern California.
Last year, Baca experienced both achievement and controversy.
In 2012, Los Angeles County had the lowest number of homicides since 1970, according to crime statistics released by the sheriff’s department in January. Additionally, Los Angeles County now “has one of the nation’s lowest crime rates for a major metropolitan area,” the release from the NSA stated.
However, Baca also faced criticism after being accused of failing to properly manage county jails while breeding a culture where deputies often utilized excessive force, in a report issued in September by the Citizen’s Commission on Jail Violence. In response, Baca issued a statement defending the steps he has taken in response to the alleged abuses, saying he immediately enacted a plan against reports of excessive force in his prisons.