Public Safety
The core mission of the Sheriff’s Office is to operate the Adult Detention Center, provide security in the Courthouse, and serve and execute civil documents on behalf of the courts. Sheriff Kincaid holds herself and her sworn and civilian staff to the highest professional standards. Her commitment to excellence includes successfully pursuing and maintaining accreditation for the Sheriff’s Office in law enforcement, corrections and correctional health care by highly respected state and national organizations.
The Sheriff’s Office was created in 1742, at the same time Fairfax County was formed, and is now one of three public safety agencies responsible for the safety, security and wellbeing of the 1.1 million residents of Fairfax County. Sheriff Kincaid and her deputies also serve the nearly 65,000 residents of the City of Fairfax and towns of Herndon and Vienna.
Sheriff Kincaid leads the Sheriff’s Office with integrity and transparency. She works hard to raise awareness about her agency’s significant contributions to public safety by going out into the community as often as she can. She encourages her staff to be out there, too, serving as role models, mentoring boys and girls, and volunteering whenever possible. She strongly believes that giving back to the community and creating meaningful opportunities, especially for the underserved, is the essence of public serve.
Criminal Justice Reform
Diversion First
Sheriff Stacey Kincaid is highly regarded both locally and nationally for raising awareness and changing attitudes about mental illness. She helped spearhead Diversion First, the County’s collaborative initiative that offers alternatives to incarceration for people with mental illness who commit low-level offenses.
STAR - Striving To Achieve Recovery
Sheriff Kincaid recently launched an addiction treatment and recovery program in the Adult Detention Center. STAR – Striving to Achieve Recovery, is a highly structured program led by peer recovery specialists with support from medical and behavioral health professionals.
Inmate Reentry
Under Sheriff Kincaid’s leadership, the Sheriff’s Office provides a large variety of opportunities for inmates to gain more education, life skills, self-awareness and confidence to facilitate better choices and to improve their chances of becoming productive members of our community after they are released.
Community Engagement
Beyond the core responsibilities of her agency, Sheriff Kincaid focuses on community-based programs that help our children, their families and older adults. She is a leading advocate for ending and preventing homelessness and works closely with organizations that provide emergency shelter and supportive services.
Shop with the Sheriff
Every summer, just before school starts, Sheriff Kincaid and her deputies take 40 children who are homeless on a shopping trip to Target for clothing, shoes, coats and accessories. She strongly believes kids needs to feel good about themselves in order to succeed.
“Taking children who are homeless on a back-to-school shopping trip is a joyful part of our summer. The County’s strategies to prevent and end homelessness are having a significant impact. However, until all children are living in permanent housing, we will continue to do our best to make their lives a little bit easier.”
– Sheriff Stacey Ann Kincaid
Communities of Trust
The County’s Communities of Trust Committee works to strengthen the relationships between the diverse members of the community and the county’s public safety agencies. Sheriff Kincaid is proud to participate in forums, festivals and neighborhood gatherings to learn about and engage with, people of all colors, religions and cultures.
Child ID
At events all around the county, Sheriff Kincaid’s deputies fingerprint and photograph children; add any demographic information their parents provide; and then produce plastic ID cards for the parents’ safekeeping. For families in our community, the card could be the key to assisting law enforcement should a child ever go missing. For children, the process of producing the card offers a fun and positive experience interacting with law enforcement officers.
Safety Seat Saturday
Sheriff Kincaid created Safety Seat Saturday when she was a captain at the Sheriff’s Office. Once a month her specially trained deputies conduct free safety seat inspections to ensure that a safety seat fits securely in the vehicle seat and the child fits securely in the safety seat. That’s a good thing! Of the 1000+ seats her deputies check each year, 80-90 percent were installed incorrectly.
Project Lifesaver
The program serves the needs of children and adults with autism, Down syndrome or a cognitive impairment, such as dementia or Alzheimer’s, that may cause them to chronically wander and not find their way back home. Clients wear a wrist or ankle band that emits a silent radio frequency. When caregivers notify the Sheriff’s Office that their loved one is missing, specially trained deputies respond to the area and conduct a search with state-of-the-art locating equipment. Project Lifesaver has a 100 percent success rate in locating wandering children and adults and bringing them safely home.