jail as it should be

LDB

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Sheriff Joe should be in charge of jails and prisons nationwide.

Oh, there's MUCH to know about Sheriff Joe!

Maricopa County was spending approx. $18 million dollars a year on stray animals, like cats and dogs. Sheriff Joe offered to take the department over, and the County Supervisors said okay.

The animal shelters are now all staffed and operated by prisoners. They feed and care for the strays. Every animal in his care is taken out and walked twice daily. He now has prisoners who are experts in animal nutrition and behavior. They give great classes for anyone who'd like to adopt an animal. He has literally taken stray dogs off the street, given them to the care of prisoners, and had them place in dog shows.

The best part? His budget for the entire department is now under $3 million. Teresa and I adopted a Weimaraner from a Maricopa County shelter two years ago. He was neutered, and current on all shots, in great health, and even had a microchip inserted the day we got him. Cost us $78.

The prisoners get the benefit of about $0.28 an hour for working, but most would work for free, just to be out of their cells for the day. Most of his budget is for utilities, building maintenance, etc. He pays the prisoners out of the fees collected for adopted animals.

I have long wondered when the rest of the country would take a look at the way he runs the jail system, and copy some of his ideas. He has a huge farm, donated to the county years ago, where inmates can work, and they grow most of their own fresh vegetables and food, doing all the work and harvesting by hand. He has a pretty good sized hog farm, which provides meat, and fertilizer. It fertilizes the Christmas tree nursery, where prisoners work, and you can buy a living Christmas tree for $6 - $8 for the Holidays, and plant it later. We have six trees in our yard from the Prison.

Yup, he was reelected last year with 83% of the vote.

Now he's in trouble with the ACLU again. He painted all his buses and vehicles with a mural, that has a special hotline phone number painted on it, where you can call and report suspected illegal aliens. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement wasn't doing enough in his eyes, so he had 40 deputies trained specifically for enforcing immigration laws, started up his hotline, and bought 4 new buses just for hauling folks back to the border. He's kind of a 'Git-R Dun' kind of Sheriff.

TO THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH JOE ARPAIO

HE IS THE MARICOPA ARIZONA COUNTY SHERIFF AND HE KEEPS GETTING ELECTED OVER AND OVER.

THIS IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio (In Arizona ) who created the ' Tent City Jail':

He has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the inmates for them.

He stopped smoking and porno magazines in the jails. Took away their weights . Cut off all but 'G' movies.

He started chain gangs so the inmates could do free work on county and city projects.

Then He Started Chain Gangs For Women So He Wouldn't Get Sued For Discrimination.

He took away cable TV Until he found out there was A Federal Court Order that Required Cable TV For Jails So He Hooked Up The Cable TV Again Only Let In The Disney Channel And The Weather Channel.

When asked why the weather channel He Replied, So They Will Know How Hot It's Gonna Be While They Are Working ON My Chain Gangs.

He Cut Off Coffee Since It Has Zero Nutritional Value.

When the inmates complained, he told them, 'This Isn't The Ritz/Carlton.....If You Don't Like It, Don't Come Back.'

He bought Newt Gingrich's lecture series on videotape that he pipes into the jails.

When asked by a reporter if he had any lecture series by a Democrat, he replied that a democratic lecture series might explain why a lot of the inmates were in his jails in the first place.

More On The Arizona Sheriff:

With Temperatures Being Even Hotter Than Usual In Phoenix (116 Degrees Just Set A New Record), the Associated Press Reports: About 2,000 Inmates Living In A Barbed-Wire-Surrounded Tent Encampment At The Maricopa County Jail Have Been Given Permission To Strip Down To Their Government-Issued Pink Boxer Shorts.

On Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing boxers were either curled up on their bunk beds or chatted in the tents, which reached 138 Degrees Inside The Week Before.

Many Were Also Swathed In Wet, Pink Towels As Sweat Collected On Their Chests And Dripped Down To Their PINK SOCKS.

'It Feels Like We Are In A Furnace,' Said James Zanzot, An Inmate Who Has Lived In The TENTS for 1 year. 'It's Inhumane.'

Joe Arpaio, the tough-guy sheriff who created the tent city and long ago started making his prisoners wear pink, and eat bologna sandwiches, is not one bit sympathetic. He said Wednesday that he told all of the inmates: 'It's 120 Degrees In Iraq And Our Soldiers Are Living In Tents Too, And They Have To Wear Full Battle Gear, But They Didn't Commit Any Crimes, So Shut Your Mouths!'

Way To Go, Sheriff!

Maybe if all prisons were like this one there would be a lot less crime and/or repeat offenders. Criminals should be punished for their crimes - not live in luxury until it's time for their parole, only to go out and commit another crime so they can get back in to live on taxpayers money and enjoy things taxpayers can't afford to have for themselves.
 

tallcal101

Veteran Expediter
This idiot has been known around the west for years. He's a wacko who thinks he's the supreme court. He has been skirting the law for several years and likens his jail to a Lousiana chain gang farm. In fact ,he has been in trouble and pulled up on charges for trying to run an actual chaingang ,with convicts in black and white stripes. It didn't fly for long.So he just changes colors,now it's puppies and kitties.
The puppies are a publicity stunt,nothing more. He's wacked. Don't fall for the post cards. He's nuts.
 

LDB

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
I knew I could count on such a response. I never imagined getting it so quickly. Sheriff Joe for national prisons director. Sensible incarceration in a land of bleeding heart liberal coddlers. It's no wonder we have such crime rates and recidivism when people think there's anything wrong with what he's doing out there. Election with 83% of the votes. At least Arizonians overwhelmingly have some sense.
 
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OntarioVanMan

Retired Expediter
Owner/Operator
Other then NO COFFEE...i see nothing wrong...maybe he's not doing the accepted penal thing, but hey...

In a former life I'd love to be outdoors like that and keep busy to make time go by...sitting in a corridor and watching TV all day just makes one lazy and the chances of a fight because of bordom increases....Prison ain't to be a picnic nor a leasure club. One should know when you've been in one so when one gets the urge to recommit they may think twice about going to jail in Joes county...There's no rehab in a prison no matter what anyone says...It should be uncomfortable, it should be dreaded....what deterrent is there if there is no fear of going back?
 

tallcal101

Veteran Expediter
Just to enlighten the group,80% of those in his jail are doing misdamenor time,less then 120 days. It's not even the state prison for Gods sake. Over zealous sharriff has been slapped more then once for his misdeeds.

Phoenix is 75 % retirees,is that a hint why he gets re elected?
Thats the problem. Now if it were wacked outgun freaks,of which there are too many in Arizona, toss these guys in the hot hole and throw away the keys.Vigilante scum.

But no,lets go after the traffic violaters and small time crooks.Let them live without AIR CONDITIONING IN 112 DEGREE HEAT and crawl around chained up in stripes. Give me a break.
The state and federal prisons in Arizona have air conditioning.This guys just a bully and a big mouth. Nothing more.
 

OntarioVanMan

Retired Expediter
Owner/Operator
I thought they was the 2-15 crowd or something like that...for a parking ticket, J walking? yipps....thats abit much....

I can remember the laundry, cleaning and landscaping days for short timers.

Remember Tal...I am the 3rd party here, Canadian, socialist, liberalist
and every other IST you can call me.....
 

greg334

Veteran Expediter
They have A/C in state and federal pens, got to stop that. Let them suffer like the victims.

If we are so enlightened society, why the hell do we do nothing for the victims?

We as a modern society, most of the western world that is, has missed the point that people need to be held accountable and even now as I type the ACLU is suing to help felons vote. If someone does a crime, the debt is exclusively to the victim or the family, not to society.
 

OntarioVanMan

Retired Expediter
Owner/Operator
They have A/C in state and federal pens, got to stop that. Let them suffer like the victims.

In 1967 , I know of one place that didn't!!....oh man! :eek:
 

OntarioVanMan

Retired Expediter
Owner/Operator
Greg said."If we are so enlightened society, why the hell do we do nothing for the victims?"

What could be done for the victims?
 

LDB

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Just because it isn't being done on the national level yet doesn't mean it isn't the right thing to do. Prison should be such a terrible place that nobody would ever do anything that might possibly land them there again. He isn't a bully, he's a sensible individual handling a problem the way it should be handled. If I tried to say it like it really is the software would turn it all into hieroglyphics. Suffice it to say that this is an area that clearly defines who gets it and who doesn't get it. I'm sure glad I get it.
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
I don't get it. "Oh, there's MUCH to know about Sheriff Joe!" is right.

Sorry, Leo, but Sheriff Joe's not only a nut, he's an out-of-control nut. A lot of the stuff in that e-mail (that's been circulating in various forms for a long time now) are true, but some are needlessly embellished, and some are not quite true at all. On the surface, Sheriff Joe's my kind a guy.

But what the e-mail doesn't go into much detail about is how many prisoners have died while in his jail, how he and his officers have been found guilty of destroying evidence in many of these cases, and how he has cost the county more than $43 million in settlements, so far. Between 2004 and 2007, Sheriff Joe was the target of a 2,150 lawsuits in U.S. District Court and hundreds more in Maricopa County courts, which is 50 times as many lawsuits as the New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston jail systems combined.

When he gets interviewed on the Today Show and other shows like that, he sure seems to say, "Isolated incident," a lot. A really, really lot.

A couple of Phoenix news outlets, the Phoenix New Times and Village Voice Media, ran a story about Sheriff Joe's real estate dealings(somehow, Joe's managed to amass more than $2 million in personal real estate holdings, almost all of it paid for and debt-free, Dave Ramsey would be so proud), and in the process mentioned his home address. Sheriff Joe's hand-picked Special Prosecutor served the editors with Grand Jury subpoenas requesting any and all documentation relating to the story, as well as the IP address of everyone who visited the paper's Web sites and had accessed any stories that mentioned Sheriff Joe, as well as which Web sites those visitors had been to prior to viewing the stories.

The next day the editors published the subpoenas, and they were immediately arrested a few hours later.

On the following day, the county attorney dropped the case after declining to pursue charges against the two. The Attorney General's office has since been ordered to appear before Judge Ana Baca due to missing documentation - including the original grand jury subpoenas, whoops - in the case file for the investigation of the New Times publication. Turns out, no one bothered to ask the Grand Jury, much less a judge, to order the subpoenas. Way to go, Joe.

He's also been intimidating the mayor, using the Freedom of Information Act to gather cell phone records and e-mails of the Mayor and his staff. What a hoot.

He's about to go to trial in August for his treatment of pre-trial detainees, you know, those folks who haven't been found guilty of squat, as he's been treating them the same way that he treats convicted prisoners. Except, that he has live Webcams in the jail that houses these pre-trial detainees and is broadcasting his own brand of Reality TV. He's up against the 14th Amendment, due process, and he'll lose.

Oh, and the results of his own commissioned study, performed and compiled by a (now former) friend of his, a professor of criminal justice Arizona State, show that the rate of recidivism under his reign is exactly the same of his predecessors, and that his techniques do not work.

He brags about feeding prisoners on pennies a day, but he personally runs the commissary and vending machines at all of the county's correctional facilities. Millions pass through there every year. Where does it go? No one knows.

I'm all for not coddling criminals, but Sheriff Joe goes far beyond not coddling them, he add his own brand of punishment on top of what they were already sentenced to. Or in some cases, on top of what they haven't even beed convicted of. Scott Norberg, a former Brigham Young football player, was arrested on charges of assaulting a police officer, and suspected of being high on meth (test results inconclusive). A handful of Sheriff Joe's officers handcuffed Norberg, beat him, drug him face down out of his cell and placed him in a restraint chair, then tightly wrapped his head with a towel. They then proceeded to repeatedly stun-gun Norberg until he died of "positional asphyxia".

Sheriff Joe did an exhaustive internal investigation (that took only a few days) and cleared all officers of wrongdoing. He also vowed to never settle the lawsuit. After it was determined that someone had mistakenly failed to erase the surveillance footage, the case was quickly closed and the County;s insurance company settled for $8.25 million. No way were they going to let a jury see that snuff film. The Maricopa County Chief Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide.

When Sheriff Joe was first elected he signed a notarized document stating that he would run for one, and only one term, and would not accept a nomination for a second term. He's in his 4th term.

Absolute power corrupts, absolutely.

Norberg had been in Sheriff Joe's custody all of FIFTEEN HOURS before they murdered him.
 

Pilgrim

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Sheriff Joe sounds like Beelzebub himself, administering hell on earth to the poor unfortunates who are screwed by Maricopa county's unfair justice system which he rules with an iron fist. Imagine a jail with no air conditioning, no gym and weight room, and no Oprah or Montel, and no cafeteria with the proper choices of entrees and desserts. I'm sure there are no other legislators or judges to act as checks/balances there - he obviously operates with impunity in a vacuum. Wonder where the feds are with all these alleged civil rights violations going on? Yet in spite of all the well documented alleged atrocities that surely must have been plastered all over the newspapers and broadcast on all the local TV networks he still gets re-elected to the tune of 83% by the senile old fools that populate Maricopa country. Finally, I am shocked - shocked! to hear that he reneged on his self imposed term limit pledge. Imagine a politician doing that - simply unheard of in this day and age! I guess it's best for civilized people and illegal Mexicans to avoid Maricopa county until the peasants come to their senses and toddle on their walkers out of the rest homes with pitchforks and torches in hand to storm the polls and vote this devil out of office.
 

LDB

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
I'm confused. Why do jail inmates need cable tv? weight rooms? pornography? movies/tv of all sorts and ratings? desserts with their meals? Why should they not be required to work full time to offset some of the costs of their incarceration? Why should they not be charged the expenses incurred?
 

OntarioVanMan

Retired Expediter
Owner/Operator
I'm confused. Why do jail inmates need cable tv? weight rooms? pornography? movies/tv of all sorts and ratings? desserts with their meals? Why should they not be required to work full time to offset some of the costs of their incarceration? Why should they not be charged the expenses incurred?

Cable is not that expensive...but they don't need 82 channels either...Most prisons have a work program where a portion is deposited into a savings account and the other into canteen portion...if they don't like jail issue toothpowder they can purchase real toothpaste and bar soap from their earnings...same with junk food as pop and potatoe chips...Some prisons supply canned fruits and vegetables thru their cannery and they have their own beef and hog processing that supply other jails...same for the laundry...not just that prisons but maybe the countys as well...all work done by convicted inmates...Landscaping on the grounds is done by short-timers or prerelease inmates. Most inmates do work Leo...Gotta remember..SOME of these guys will be getting out...and most of them aren't your hard core criminal types....

And desserts....A healthy balanced meal is required by law. Trust me you wouldn't want some of them desserts!
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
I'm confused. Why do jail inmates need cable tv? weight rooms? pornography? movies/tv of all sorts and ratings? desserts with their meals? Why should they not be required to work full time to offset some of the costs of their incarceration? Why should they not be charged the expenses incurred?

It's the satire that's confusing you. The Pilgrim is on Joe's side, and everything that comes with him. If you can make life unpleasant for inmates, what's wrong with a little murder and mayhem now and again? If you're a bad person and you end up in Joe's jail, you deserve whatever happens to you.


"I'm sure there are no other legislators or judges to act as checks/balances there - he obviously operates with impunity in a vacuum."

Not far off. He's an elected official, and thus answers to the people. He's had his wrists slapped several times by judges, and he's had to back off or change the way he does things to fit within the letter of the law. As long as the old farts of Phoenix keep giving him their stamp of approval, he can skate quite close to the edge of the law and it's all good.

I think before all is said and done, Sheriff Joe will end up not in his own jail, but a federal prison. He's being investigated for several things at the moment.
 

LDB

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
No cable is even less expensive than the cheapest cable. If it's not on broadcast they don't need it. Dessert is not required for a balanced meal. I hope they do get out and I hope they never go back. Eliminate all the frills and benefits and make it as unpleasant as possible and they become less likely to return.
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
Eliminate all the frills and benefits and make it as unpleasant as possible and they become less likely to return.

And yet that's the very thing that Sheriff Joe's own commissioned study, as well as numerous other studies, have shown to not be true. The repeat offender rate is the same with frills, and without frills.

If you really want to cut down on the recidivism rate, you need to just start stun-gunning people to death before the arraignment. Oh, wait, they do that already.
 

Pilgrim

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Sheriff Joe should be in charge of jails and prisons nationwide....
Maybe if all prisons were like this one there would be a lot less crime and/or repeat offenders. Criminals should be punished for their crimes - not live in luxury until it's time for their parole, only to go out and commit another crime so they can get back in to live on taxpayers money and enjoy things taxpayers can't afford to have for themselves.

I think the point here is that if the repeat offender rate is the same with or without frills, why bother paying for the frills? Why spend the taxpayers money for the comforts of the criminals who committed crimes against them?
 

always confused

Seasoned Expediter
maybe sheriff joe is a little over the line, but i have no problem with the idea of prisoners working, making a little cash for goodies. if they want cable why not let them pay for it? if they want more than basic nutrition, let them pay for it. i know some areas use prison labor for roadside cleanup. a few years ago a tornado came thru and moved my mothers house about ten feet off the foundation, destroying several nearby structures. the three acres she lived on was covered with debris. a crew from the state prison nearby came out and helped cleanup at no charge. i sprung for some cold sodas which were greatly appreciated.
the prison work release program where they go to area jobs is a privledge much sought by the prisoners. many prisoners have court ordered restitution they must pay. these payments continue long after release, and can result in re-incarination if not paid.

should prison be fun? no. should it be cruel? no. will it make everybody a model citizen? no.
 

OntarioVanMan

Retired Expediter
Owner/Operator
No cable is even less expensive than the cheapest cable. If it's not on broadcast they don't need it. Dessert is not required for a balanced meal. I hope they do get out and I hope they never go back. Eliminate all the frills and benefits and make it as unpleasant as possible and they become less likely to return.

Leo I can tell you for the fringe criminal like a first timer who just made a bad decision it's bad enough and would and does scare them crapless...but the more streetwise career criminal it (lack of frills) wouldn't even be a consideration if they wanted reoffendedl

Look at the fact with or without a death penalty the murder rate stays the same....
 
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