The cruelest sheriff in America
Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff in America,” has made a name for himself by being tougher on prisoners than on crime. Since 1993, he has overseen law enforcement and county jails in Maricopa County, Arizona, an area of nearly four million people that includes Phoenix. William Finnegan profiles (subscription only) the 77-year-old sheriff in The New Yorker’s July 20 issue.
Arpaio seems to delight in dehumanizing others. After winning his first election in 1993, he built a tent-city jail in an area where temperatures can rise to 135 degrees. He banned cigarettes, hot lunches, coffee, and salt and pepper, rejecting a study he had commissioned when it found harsh jail conditions ineffective at reducing recidivism. He gave inmates just two meals a day, each at 30 cents a head. He instituted black-and-white striped uniforms, but added pink underwear and pink socks. Several times he humiliated prisoners by marching them between facilities in the pink underwear alone. The prisoners nicknamed him “Hitler.”
Deaths and injuries in Arpaio’s jails have already cost Maricopa County taxpayers $43 million in court and settlement expenses. Arpaio’s officers have used stun guns against prisoners who were already immobilized in restraint chairs. As Finnegan writes, “The Phoenix New Times found that, between 2004 and 2008, the county jails of New York, Chicago, Los Angles, and Houston, which together house more than six times as many inmates as Maricopa, were sued a total of forty-three times. During the same period, Arpaio’s department was sued over jail conditions almost twenty-two hundred times in federal district court.”
Inmates in Maricopa County’s jails have shaken off the threat of retaliation and engaged in civil disobedience. In one of the largest US prison hunger strikes this past Cinco de Mayo, 500 inmates refused the morning meal and 900 refused the evening meal. Activists outside the jails have organized candlelight vigils, written letters, demonstrated at county meetings, and picketed Arpaio’s offices. On February 28, the National Day Laborers Organizing Network and El Puente Arizona organized a “March to Stop the Hate” focusing on Arpaio’s treatment of undocumented immigrants. Some 3,000 people rallied in downtown Phoenix.
Zack de la Rocha, of Rage Against the Machine, spoke at that march:
In the latest Arpaio investigation, the US Department of Justice is reviewing his discriminatory profiling in the arrest and treatment of possibly undocumented people. Perhaps we might one day thwart this mockery of a ‘public safety’ official, who takes pride in the detestable quality of his jail food and in situating his open-air tent-city jail beside a dump, who diverts limited county dollars away from investigating violent crime or even responding promptly to emergency calls, to instead raid workplaces in search of undocumented yet taxpaying immigrants.
Who the real “criminal” is, one hardly has to wonder.
This is ridiculous. The man is running a prison, not a Holiday Inn. I do not believe that inmates should sit around watching cable on my tax dollar. I am a government employee, and they only give us stuff that was from the lowest bidder, and I sure don’t get to watch Oprah. How many of the 2,200 federal cases filed were won, or for that matter how many were totally thrown out. Out of the 43 in other states most of them were justified. The racial profiling cases are crap as well. If i pull you over, and ask you for a license and you don’t have one then you get arrested. It’s the law, not rocket science, or racism. If you cannot come up with legal documents then you get deported, and that is because you are an illegal alien. If you don’t like America and our rules I don’t know what to tell you, but I can guarantee that your ancestors followed proper procedures when they came here if you are a legal citizen. Is it right for so many to totally revolt against the laws of this country and get away scott free with it? If I were to break into your house would I be a burglar, or a an undocumented tennant that you must provide for? You really need to get your head out of the clouds, before we all wind up in the gutter.
If you broke into my house, you would be dead. If you mowed my lawn, you would not. What a ridiculous comparison. He is not running a prison. He is running a jail where the inmates are either serving short stints for relatively minor offenses (serious offenses go to prison which Joe has nothing to do with) or they are presumed innocent awaiting trial. You are as idiotic as your name!
Ok, your post is outdated, but Arpaio isn’t “dehumanizing” others.
Here’s dehumanizing, and you bet your sweet ass I’d be doing just that.
If I were him, I’d be blowing their fucking brains out behind the jail so I wouldn’t have to feed them.
THAT’s dehumanizing illegals; I’m proud of that.
Illegal immigrants are breaking the law by entering our country illegally; by shooting them like the vermin they are, it sends a message: Stay the fuck out of our country.
At Mexico’s southern border they DO shoot illegals.
Our military forces are overseas defending Israel
instead of defending us from the invasion here at home.
If we keep voting for the Plutocratic Globalist Party
(Republicans and Democrats) we will get more of this.
Its time for the TEA Party movement to become Nationalist
and mainstream. Polls already indicate this may become
something big, let’s not allow it to get hijacked by
Neocons.
IF ALL SHERIFFS (INCLUDING MY BOSS) CONDUCTED BUSINESS LIKE JOE, I GUARUNTEE THAT OUR COUNTRY WOULD BE A BETTER PLACE! CITIZENS WOULD BE SAFER AND CRIMINALS WOULD SWITCH CAREERS…..FAST!
Guararauarentee rawwwr. If PHX could have that $43 mil back and spend that money on police, not that dumbass sheriff’s legal bill, i guarantee the city would be much safer
It is truly a sad time in the United States when there are thoughts and comments like the ones you people are posting. Pride in your country should never mean hatred or murderous retaliation against human beings of any race. I hope one day you see the error of your thinking. God Bless America and the beautiful melting pot from which it came.
Killing illegals IS over the top – but your reference to race is unfounded.
error of thinking…ERROR OF THINKING!!!! If people obeyed the law ,we wouldn’t have this problem. And also, I might add that millions of our tax dollars are going to these lowlives.
-Think again, why don’t you
For the comments of Jim Bob, Steve Harkonnen and DEPUTY DOG, you all are hateful people. You three should NOT be considered as “human” beings. Wait until this happens to one of your family members, whether they get stopped for a DWI, or even warrants; this can happen to anyone who will step foot in that insufferable prison. And what will you do then…nothing. Deputy DOG, maybe you should start sucking up to your boss, this way if you get stopped for DWI (which in your case most members do) he’ll won’t send you there.
congrats to “you three”, and to you, Cam V, why don’t you play the race card too?
-stupid lefties
[...] of attention-holic Sheriff Arpaio who has no problem forcing women to give birth while shackled, parading immigrants in pink underwear and conducting racial profiling while ignoring real law enforcement priorities. After all, the [...]
Immigration Clearinghouse is an excellent website. It has made me reexamine my priorities
[...] the action constructive? Or did protesters miss a chance to query the notorious sheriff on the inhumane conditions he maintains at the county jail, his shackling of female inmates giving birth, or his immigration [...]
Hahaha some people have some ridiculous websites… Im glad to get a good laugh.
I do agree