For those not familiar with Joe Arpaio, he is the county sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona. He keeps getting re-elected over and over again. These are some of the reasons why:
Sheriff Joe Arpaio created the âtent city jailâ to save Arizona from spending tens of millions of dollars on another expensive prison complex; inmates sleep in tents!
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, took away their weightlifting equipment and cut off all but âGâ movies. He says, âTheyâre in jail to pay a debt to society, not to build muscles so they can assault innocent people when they leave.â
He started chain gangs to use the inmates to do free work on county and city projects and save taxpayerâs money. Men work in pink âClean(ing) and Soberâ shirts. Their underwear is also pink!
Then he started chain gangs for women so he wouldnât 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 but only allows the Disney Channel and The Weather Channel. When asked why the weather channel, he replied, âSo these morons will know how hot itâs gonna be while they are working on my chain gangs.â
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, âThis isnât the Ritz. If you donât like it, donât come back.âÂ
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° F set a new record for June 2, 2009), the Associated Press reported that about 2,000 inmates living in a tent encampment surrounded by barbed wire at the Maricopa County Jail have been given permission to strip down to their government-issued pink boxer shorts. On that Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing pink boxer shorts were overheard chatting in the tents, where temperatures reached 128 degrees. âThis is hell. It feels like we live in a furnace,â said Ernesto Gonzales, an inmate for 2 years with 10 more to go. âItâs inhumane.â
Joe Arpaio, who makes his prisoners wear pink and eat bologna sandwiches, is not one bit sympathetic. âCriminals should be punished for their crimes, not live in luxury until itâs 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 canât afford to have for themselves.â
The same day he told all the inmates who were complaining of the heat in the tents: âItâs between 120 to 130 degrees in Iraq and our soldiers are living in tents there too, and they have to walk all day in that sun, wearing full battle gear and getting shot at, and THEY have not committed any crimes, so shut your damned mouths!â
Sheriff Joe was just re-elected for the fourteenth time as Sheriff in Maricopa County, Arizona.
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