Thread: Joe Arpaio

Originally Posted by gratewhitehuntr

and to think, I'd kill them for free

just gimme a minute to set up here

You and me both

To be honest, this is the first time I've heard of this guy. After doing research, I'd have to say that I mostly agree with his practices. I very much like this military-like way of punishing. There are some things I don't really agree with. Such as the food. Although they shouldn't have a gourmet chef or anything like that, just a sandwich would hardly meet nutritional needs, I think. Other than that, I have no problem with everything else he's doing.

By the way, someone mentioned about not wanting to pay for someone to live when they're on death row. Killing someone is more expensive than keeping them alive (there's a lot of documents and fees).

Originally Posted by Berticus

By the way, someone mentioned about not wanting to pay for someone to live when they're on death row. Killing someone is more expensive than keeping them alive (there's a lot of documents and fees).

Yes we went over that... but come on... pfft documents schouments.

Death row criminals should be required to help society by being broken up for spare parts. Think of all the transplant patients one healthy young to middle aged repeat offender could save.

Originally Posted by murph

I have no problem with the work instead of letting them sit around as that's standard here. You don't work you don't get any money to buy shampoo, toothpaste, tobacco etc.

One of the problems I have with treatment like this is it isn't across the board in most cases. Is a MD who is found guilty of embezzling 250k going to be treated like this? ...

Sorry to be a late comer to this thread (I was on vacation last week).. I live in Maricopa County and Arpaio has been the elected sheriff here for +/- 15 years. He is Republican and Arizona is a strong Republican state with very conservative views. The government here is pro business (particularly the real estate business) so spending money for jails, education, etc. is minimal. Since the population has doubled or tripled during his watch, he had to do something to deal with he growing number of prisoners... or face letting them go because of overcrowding. He's a retired DEA officer if I remember correctly, so letting them go was against his sensibilities... so he housed them in tents... basically large army surplus tents (donated, at least initially, since he had no budget to buy them). The tents are heated and cooled to a point, so the prisoners are in no worse conditions than a large portion of them would be if they weren't in jail. Although the temperatures in Phoenix get extreme by many peoples standards, bear in mind that there is a large low socio-economic population here who have minimal resources... they typically live in housing that has little or no heating or cooling. Tent city uses fans and swamp coolers in the Summer and propane heaters in the Winter.

Arpaio is a media whore... so expect him to be very public and say outlandish things in a macho tough-guy sense... all to attract attention. Hence lots of controversy.

He also has bricks and mortar jails that houses prisoners who need solitary confinement, are sick, or in jeopardy of being harmed/killed by the other inmates (eg, a child molester, etc.). Tent city is there for the average prisoner sentenced to county jail, typically for 1-year or less... most are there on lesser changers (drugs, assault, robbery, DUI, etc.) and a high percentage are repeat offenders. Some are there on a work-release program, but most are fully incarcerated.

The "chain gangs" clean up various "high visibility" areas around the County. The prisoners volunteer to do the work and get paid for it. I believe the program is only available to good behavior inmates. Basically, they are a visible deterrent... kids prone to getting involved in a life of crime see them and hopefully some decide they don't want to be incarcerated that way.

Tent City meals are atrocious... they're mostly made up of government surplus food and foodstuffs removed from grocery shelves that are about to pass their freshness date (eg, stale bread)... anything he can buy cheap. But they contain the needed calories per day and are somewhat balanced, so no one has been able to win in a lawsuit that charged mistreatment or cruelty. Diabetics, etc. do get different meals AFAIK.

An engineer who worked for me got drunk one night and was in an accident... resulting in a DUI/manslaughter conviction... he spent a year in the tent city jail. I wouldn't call him a celebrity in any sense, but it shows that people of means are pretty much treated the same as those without.

Thanks for cutting through the Bull Joe. I think I respect the sheriff even more when I hear he is not just a hard ass but also coping with budget issues in the most effective way possible.

Sherriff Joe is also one of my heroes. I believe we could cut the death penalty budget to a bare minimum. To quote Charlie Daniels:
"Now if I had my way with people sellin' dope
I'd take a big tall tree and a short piece of rope
I'd hang 'em up high and let 'em swing 'til the sun goes down".

For all the others in prison, put em to work raising theri own food, making their own clothes, cut out the color tv, cable and a/c and make em earn their living. They could grow cotton for clothing, tobacco for smoking, raise cattle, hogs and a garden for food. Cut their appeals down to one appeal. They could even grow their own hemp for the rope!

Originally Posted by freebird

. They could even grow their own hemp for the rope!

Particularly advanced thinking!!

I like it!!

Originally Posted by JMS

Particularly advanced thinking!!

I like it!!

If only we could get the politico's to go along with it.....but that's a whole 'nother soapbox.

Joe,
Isn't 1 year quite lenient for that offence? The equivalent here, which covers killing someone inside or outside your car, sober or drunk carries a maximum 14 year sentence. Not that I've ever heard of anyone getting anything like that but you don't hear of that many people killing anyone while being very drunk and driving like a complete maniac. A lot of cases are just people slightly over the limit, from the night before or sober people speeding or having a momentory lapse of concentration.
Maybe that's why this crime is far less common over here.

If only well behaved prisoners i.e low risk are put into the tents doesn't that sort of suggest that your friend was given preferential treatment as he wasn't put in a higher risk normal prison population with the intendent risks of violence etc.?

By the way I'm not what you'd call a bleeding heart liberal and I do think some of the pandering is crazy, for example we had 300 cases over here where prisoners were awarded payouts, $1M total, because they had to slop out (use and empty buckets of their overnight waste in the morning) which was a breach of their human rights according to the Euro nutters or payouts because prisoners are forced to go cold turkey.