With help from neighbors like you, Baltimore City Sheriff Sam Cogen will continue moving Public Safety forward for every community in our City.
Here’s how he’s doing it.
HUMANIZING THE EVICTION PROCESS
Under Sheriff Cogen’s leadership, the Baltimore City Sheriff’s Office implemented the first social work resource program for tenant assistance in any Sheriff’s Office in the history of the State of Maryland.
Sam created a social work resource program that helps connect tenants in eviction proceedings to state and local resources that may be available.
By bridging services and connecting providers in the City and around the State, Sam Cogen’s Sheriff’s Office aims to get help to the people who need it most.
MODERNIZING THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE
On November 30, 2022, Sam Cogen made history when swore in as the 41st Sheriff and made history again later that day when he plugged the first computer into the office wall.
Since then, Sam has partnered his community-oriented policing vision alongside the newest technologies, making sure the Sheriff’s Office is equipped to meet the modern moment for Baltimore City.
PROTECTING OUR COURTS
Recognizing the longstanding underfunding of court security resources in Baltimore City, Sam created a historic partnership between the Sheriff’s Office and Coppin State University to train, educate, and certify a modern Court Security Officer to protect the Baltimore City Circuit Court.
Through this collaboration, the Sheriff’s Office has been able to efficiently make use of its limited resources while still protecting the rights and safety of every person who uses our Baltimore City Circuit Court buildings day in and day out.
PROMOTING ACCOUNTABILITY
During Sam’s tenure, the Baltimore City Sheriff’s Office rewrote the General Orders for the office in its entirety, with the new orders being to national standards, as the first step of the aspiration of becoming CALEA certified.
Sam is proud to work collaboratively with the Police Accountability Board to ensure that reforms to the office are effective while constitutional and meet the community standard.
INVESTING IN COMMUNITIES
Baltimore is a city of extraordinary neighborhoods, but not every neighborhood has equal resources.
Recognizing this, Sam focused the efforts of the deputies in the evenings and on the weekends to work to provide security for special events and community festivals, often at a reduced or no cost to the community association.
Then, on October 1, 2025, legislation that created the Neighborhood Services Unit took effect, marking another historic first for the Sheriff’s Office: a unit within the agency designed to be responsive directly to the complaints of the community and devoting resources to make all our neighborhoods more livable.
REDUCING VIOLENT CRIME
Under Sam’s leadership, the Sheriff’s Office devoted warrant apprehension resources to bring to justice repeat violent offenders.
Having served on a warrant apprehension squad himself, Sam was able to implement a best practice to focus efforts on this limited group of individuals who commit the majority of the violent crime in our city and are often the same individuals who become victims of homicides themselves.