ARTICLE: Arizona-style "rehabilitation"

[laydee_vet]

Those of you in AZ may have seen this already, but Sheriff Joe made the papers as a part of an article on the heat in Phoenix. Maricopa (Phoenix) County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is famous in AZ for his tent city and pink apparel, including boxer shorts, for inmates of his jails.

From the Seattle Times of July 26, 2003 I quote:

"About 2000 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, hundred of men wearing boxers were either curled up on their bunks or chatted inside their tents, where temperatures reached 138 degrees the previous week. Many also were swathed in wet, pink towels as sweat collected on their chests and dripped to their pink socks.

"It feels like you are in a furnace," said James Zanzo't, an inmate who has lived in the tents for 1 1/2 years. "It's inhumane."

Joe Arpaio, the sheriff who created the tent city and long ago started making his prisoners wear pink, is not sympathetic. He said Wednesday that he told the inmates: "It's 120 degrees in Iraq and the soldiers are living in tents and they didn't commit any crimes, so shut your mouths."

[toi_ama]

We wouldn't let people keep dogs in conditions like that. I can't stand that guy down there in Arizona. He's the epitome of what's wrong with the whole system nationwide. My grandkids like to watch Animal Planet's pet cops where they go bust people for maltreatment and cruelty to animals, but yet some of those same things are done to prisoners and the country turns their backs, saying they're living it up at taxpayer expense and that "prison is supposed to be punishment" and other ignorant statements. Good ol' Sheriff Joe is a despicable piece of refuse----a good example that often the "keepers" are worse than the "kept".

[laydee_vet]

His politician bosses let him do whatever he wants to because he's "tough on crime."

[lorachad]

heres another bit of info from az, joe is the same guy who made animal abuse charges stricter. he has turned the 1st. ave jail downtown, into an animal shelter! yes, while thousands of men & women are living in tents!. all county inmates have been cut to only 2 meals a day( brunch& dinner) he boasts about how he has the daily cost of housing each inmate down to like 38cents/ day. dont forget that inmates also have to pay rent as well. $30/ month. TO BE IN JAIL!! now what on earth makes that right??