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Kudos to tough guy warden of tent city prison

(by Luigi Luciano - August 09, 2007)
I wrote about this topic before and it still interests me. I wonder why one person can do what he is doing with his jail and the others do not follow his lead.

 Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona created the tent city jail. Most of you might have heard of it by now. For those who have not let me tell you about some of the things that are down at that 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. This in itself is crazy. There is a court order that jails have to have cable? There are millions of people who can’t afford to have cable in their homes but convicts have to have it. 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.”

 With temperatures being even hotter than usual in Phoenix   (116 degrees just set a new record), 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. 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’re in a furnace,” Said James Cannot, 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 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 damned mouths!"

 This is a man I admire and that we should learn from. Jails are supposed to be punishment. Some people say being confined is punishment. It is but not enough. I have never been in jail or plan to be. These thugs need to suffer as much as possible to make them appreciate what they lost. 

 The criminals who are sentenced to years in prison and get out on parole should fear going back into jail. Many look at it is a place to go to get 3 squares, TV, exercise and to belong to gangs. The only gangs they should belong to are the chain gangs.

 This guy has the right idea.

 Sheriff Joe Arpaio began his career as a federal narcotics agent, establishing a stellar record in infiltrating drug organizations from Turkey to the Middle East to Mexico, Central, and South America to cities around the U.S. His expertise and success led him to top management positions around the world with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). He concluded his remarkable 32-year federal career as head of the DEA for Arizona.

 He is not only tough but also wants to help the inmates. The Sheriff has launched rehabilitative programs like “Hard Knocks High,” the only accredited high school under a Sheriff in an American jail, and ALPHA, an anti-substance-abuse program that has greatly reduced recidivism.

 I think we should learn from this. I understand that we are not going to put hard core murders in tents but we can do some of the other things he does. He banned smoking, coffee, movies, pornographic magazines, and unrestricted TV in all jails. He has the cheapest meals in the U.S. too. The average meal costs about 15 cents, and inmates are fed only twice daily, to cut the labor costs of meal delivery. He even stopped serving them salt and pepper to save taxpayers $20,000 a year.

 Kudos to this guy. If I were in charge of jails this is a plan I would have to look at as well castration for rapists, electric chairs for murders (guilty with DNA evidence so we avoid problems for the do gooders of this world).

 Now the Sheriff is going after illegal immigrants. This man is great. But with the things that he does come the critics.

  Naturally critics, like Elias Bermudez of Immigrants without Borders, said Sheriff Joe Arpaio's tools will likely compromise civil rights.

 "He is causing hardship and pain to people whose only crime they've committed is coming here undocumented to feed their families, and that's sad," Bermudez said.

 Here we go again. This nut is saying that because these people come here undocumented and need money for their families it is OK. We’ll I can use some money to pay my bills but it is not Ok to rob a bank to get it.

 But not worrying about the critics Arpaio will deputize 64 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents so they can act as both federal and local law enforcement agents.

 "We are quickly becoming a full-fledged anti-illegal immigration agency," Arpaio said.

 This is the guy who needs to be in charge of more than just this county in Arizona.

 We need to think more like he does and less about the criminals.

 Whether you murder, rob or come here illegally if you break the law there should be consequences for your actions. Those consequences need to be hard enough so you won’t want to repeat what you did and go back to a place that is worse than where you are now.

 We are too soft in this country. Political correctness has gone too far.

 If I were in charge I would take some of the ideas the Sheriff has an implement them in other jails. I would profile all I can on any subject. If it were terrorism I would profile the people that fit the bill.

 Enough is enough its time to stand strong against the nuts that try to protect all these thugs and want more rights for prisoners. If they want rights don’t commit the crimes and try to decent human beings.