USA SuperJail?

[Wells 1st MRB]

TO THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH JOE ARPAIO, HE IS THE MARICOPA COUNTY SHERIFF ( ARIZONA ) AND HE KEEPS GETTING ELECTED OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

These are some of the reasons why:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio created the 'tent city jail' to save Arizona from spending tens of millions of dollars on another expensive prison complex.

He has jail meals down to 20 cents a serving and charges the inmates for them.

He banned smoking and pornographic magazines in the jails, and took away their weightlifting equipment and cut off all but 'G' movies.. He says:

'They're in jail to pay a debt to society not to build muscles so they can assault innocent people when they leave.'

He started chain gangs to use the inmates to do free work on county and city projects and save taxpayer's money.

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 but only allows the Disney channel and the weather channel.

When asked why the weather channel, he replied: 'So these morons will know how hot it's gonna be while they are working on my chain gangs.'

He cut off coffee because it has zero nutritional value and is therefore a waste of taxpayer money. When the inmates complained, he told them, 'This isn't the Ritz/Carlton. If you don't like it, don't come back.'

He also bought the Newt Gingrich lecture series on US history 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 that actually tells the truth for a change would be welcome and that it might even explain why 95% of the inmates were in his jails in the first place.

With temperatures being even hotter than usual in Phoenix (116 degrees just set a new record for June 2nd 2007), the Associated Press reported: 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 the Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing pink boxer shorts were overheard chatting in the tents, where temperatures reached 128 degrees.

'This is hell. It feels like we live in a furnace,' said Ernesto Gonzales, an inmate for 2 years with 10 more to go. 'It's inhumane.'

Joe Arpaio, who makes his prisoners wear pink, and eat bologna sandwiches, is not one bit sympathetic. 'Criminals should be punished for their crimes - not live in luxury until it's time for parole, only to go out and commit more crimes so they can come back in to live on taxpayers money and enjoy things many taxpayers can't afford to have for themselves.'

The same day he told all the inmates who were complaining of the heat in the tents: 'It's between 120 to 130 degrees in Iraq and our soldiers are living in tents too, and they have to walk all day in the sun, wearing full battle gear and get shot at, and they have not committed any crimes, so shut your damned mouths!'

Way to go, Sheriff! If all prisons were like yours there would be a lot less crime and we would not be in the current position of running out of prison spaces.

Sheriff Joe was just re-elected as Sheriff in Maricopa County , Arizona

[Morton]

If I lived in Arizona I would vote for him.

[Vogt]

I saw this guy on the History Channel for that prison. Pretty bad ass.

[Yamagata 1st MRB]

Sorley did a report on him for one of his classes. That Sheriff knows exactly what he's doing and I think all states need to start taking notes.

[Ford 1st MRB]

"James Saville was 18 years old when he was arrested on July 9, 1999, by undercover sheriff's deputies and charged with plotting to kill Arpaio with a bomb.

A self-described pyromaniac with prior felony convictions, Saville was slapped with a $1 million bond and no hope of getting out of jail before his trial.

Poor and confused, Saville was the perfect stooge for yet another Joe Arpaio publicity stunt.

That Saville was railroaded was incidental to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, where stroking Sheriff Joe Arpaio's publicity furnace comes well ahead of law enforcement.

All that mattered to Arpaio and his media czarina, Lisa Allen MacPherson, was that Saville's arrest led the evening television news and was page-one material in the county's daily newspapers.

And they got what they wanted: Images of gun-wielding deputies swooping into a parking lot and taking a bewildered and unarmed Saville into custody filled the airwaves.

News anchors gushed how they were thankful that Saville's despicable plot had been foiled by vigilant deputies and that the brave Arpaio had averted yet another serious attempt on his life.

"Well, we took this guy off the street," Arpaio bragged in his best John Wayne inflection to a television news station after going home to "comfort" his wife in the wake of the alleged foiled assassination attempt. "He's back in prison, where he belongs."

This is where Arpaio wished the Saville newsreel had ended.

But there's more.

Saville didn't deserve to be locked up in Arpaio's dungeon.

He was innocent.

Four years after his televised arrest, a Maricopa County Superior Court jury ruled that Arpaio's detectives had entrapped Saville.

Entrapment defenses rarely succeed because they are exceedingly difficult to prove. James Saville's attorney, Ulises Ferragut, had to prove that the idea of killing the sheriff had started with law enforcement, that deputies or their agents urged Saville to commit the crime and that Saville was not predisposed to do it.

Ferragut proved all three elements, and James Saville walked out of Arpaio's jail a free man. After the trial, jurors told Ferragut they were convinced that Saville had been a pawn in an elaborate media ploy.

"Arpaio had cameras out there waiting to film the arrest," Ferragut says. "The jurors indicated this was clearly a publicity stunt."

What was good press for Arpaio was a horrific experience for James Saville. He faced up to 22 years in prison if convicted of the trumped-up charges designed to boost Arpaio's popularity. Earlier this month, the Saville family filed a $10 million lawsuit against the county for entrapment and wrongly incarcerating James Saville.

As for Linda Saville, she is not content with just the lawsuit. The 25-year-old single mom wants to run Arpaio -- who in elections past has been the state's most popular politician -- out of office. And she has formed a political action committee called Mothers Against Arpaio, with other victims of Arpaio's tactics, to do just that.

Mothers Against Arpaio has staged protests in front of the county jail, and last week several members pelted Arpaio with questions about jail deaths during a Scottsdale breakfast meeting with political supporters. An angry, red-faced Joe Arpaio refused to answer the mothers of his victims.

The group, which includes about a dozen family members, is compiling detailed information of abuses inside Arpaio's notorious jails and posting victims' names on a Web site. The list includes more than two dozen examples of deaths, beatings and suicides that have occurred inside the county lockups. It also cites several examples of political vendettas carried out by the sheriff's office against Arpaio's critics.

In the past, the group might be easily dismissed as disgruntled family members upset over the treatment of loved ones who rightly landed in jail. But Mothers Against Arpaio has a mountain of facts to back up the legacy of atrocities with which it taunts the sheriff during his frequent public appearances."

He isn't the saint you paint him as. True I believe inmates should pay for their crimes, and I agree with some of his policies, but he is just as corrupt as some of his inmates, if not more.

[GMoney BAR]

I would like to see what kind of offenders he has listed there. I'm not looking at races, but I want to see the age group, sentence lengths, crimes committed, etc. Usually at a county prison most the people that come in there are going to be fairly mild offenses: such as substance abusers and domestic violence. Sometimes you'll get a murderer or rapist in there too depending on the setup for the jail.

What it all comes down to really is the mentality of the people in the area. If the mentality of the people in the area is more retributive and lock em' up throw away the key, then this prison is perfect for that. This prison design is successful to meet that criteria. If the mentality of the people in the area is more treatment oriented like rehabilitation and/or habilitation then this prison is not right for the area. Apparently this prison fits the peoples mentality of the area.

There could be a few flaws that a lot of people just don't see. Personally I'm fine with the way the prisoners are treated if it is their second offense or multiple count of a crime. If an inmate is in there for a first time offense on a fairly low crime, such as substance abuse, then this prison is not going to do anything for them in my opinion. Most inmates in prisons all over the US are incarcerated for substance abuse, DUIs, and property crimes.

All are crimes that were committed and all of the offenders should be treated accordingly on a case by case analysis. Some of the offenders in that prison probably don't need that type of prison system. Remember that the sentence needs to fit the crime according to the Fairness in Sentencing Act of 2002. Pretty much what it comes down to is some of these inmates need to be treated for what has been done. I'm not saying that they shouldn't have to pay for their crimes. I'm a firm believer on convicts should pay for their crimes.

For some of the inmates sentenced at that prison they probably don't need to spend their whole sentence there. The conditions are harsh enough to deter them from recidivating. What they will need is treatment or reintegration treatment other than a parole officer. Parole officers case loads are too high to give each member a proper reintegration into society, so a lot of times a convict will just recidivate and be back in the system.

If a convict spends ten years of his/her life in a prison, any prison at all, and then are just handed over to an overburdened parole officer then that convict will not receive the proper reintegration help that is needed to succeed in society. There is no point in dooming an offender for the rest of his/her life because they screwed up. A lot of these people can be helped and treated so they become useful members of society and help contribute to things with their efforts.

It's my belief that we treat offenders for most first time offenses after an extremely difficult prison term: such as this one in Arizona. The prison life needs to be so difficult it will help act as a specific deterrence towards the offender as a reminder of what it was like incarcerated. After their prison sentence the offender needs to be treated and slowly reintegrated into society with a positive agenda. Should the offender recidivate, then lock em' up and throw away the key. If someone doesn't want to change, they wont so then why even bother with more and more offenses after the second one. See ya buddy, have a nice prison bitch life. That's my opinion though.

[Smithers 1st MRB]

I agree with ford. Just because it looks pretty, does not necessarily mean its right. 20 cents a serving for food. Mmk. How much money is he getting per serving to feed those inmates, Not Using. Oh right, the excess funds must go to you know, Site maintenance, For those Nice looking Korean War surplus tents. Gimme Some receipts or pull up a cot bitch.

[Kirkendall 1st MRB]

For how much flak this guy is getting for his policies, if he was embezzling money you'd know it. Many major groups/politicians/media organizations have a big problem with Joe Arpaio, and I'm sure they're fact checking all of his receipts for something they could oust him for.

Having said that, the guy's record has a lot of stuff on there. Federal Investigations, Health-code violations, etc. Personally, I have no trouble with health violations in a jail but that's me.

[McCarthy]

Valid arguments on everyones part. I agree mostly with all of you. He might be doing the right thing, but perhaps the wrong way. He could be a dirty bastard, but nobody will ever prove it because he has the people. I like his ideas but Gmoney is probably right. The wrong people could, and most likely are in there with some fucked up people. It might be okay to place them in there for a little while, but leaving people in there too long for some petty shit they did is rediculous. I too would like to see a list of the personnel and crimes committed. I hop this technique spreads, but only in the right places. And fuck his couch if he is a cheating fuck.

[McKenzie 1st MRB]

My father worked in county jails for over 15 years, and worked in correctional institutions for about 5 years before that. He has seen guys go in and out of jail over a dozen times for the exact same crime. Arpaio may have some issues with him, but I don't see anyone else driving to get rid of crime like he does.