<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META content=text/html;charset=iso-8859-1 http-equiv=content-type>
<META content="MSHTML 5.00.2919.6307" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY bottomMargin=0 leftMargin=3 rightMargin=3 topMargin=0>
<DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff>OK,here is a piece of nonsense forwarded to me by a
skeptical friend. Following that is my usual long-winded dissection of the said
nonsense. Unlike the craven coward who wrote the first part, I welcome any and
all responses, whether you agree with me or not. It sharpens my understanding of
what I believe to answer criticisms from people who see it differently. In rare
circumstances, you might even change my mind. </FONT>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff>Siarlys</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%" #cccccc\?>-----
Forwarded Message -----</DIV>
<DIV><B>From:</B> "Vicki" <<A
href="mailto:vfrank@new.rr.com">vfrank@new.rr.com</A>></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=4>Is there any truth to this does not sound likely or
just another computer thing.</FONT></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=4></FONT><BR></DIV>Subject: Re elected
Sheriff<BR><BR>TO THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH JOE ARPAIO,<BR>HE IS THE
MARICOPA ARIZONA COUNTY SHERIFF<BR>AND HE KEEPS GETTING ELECTED OVER AND
OVER.<BR>THESE ARE THE REASONS WHY:<BR><BR>Sheriff Joe Arpaio (in Arizona) who
created the "tent city jail"<BR><BR>He has jail meals down to 40 cents a
serving and charges the inmates<BR>for them.<BR><BR>He stopped smoking and
porno magazines in the jails. Took away their<BR>weights. Cut off all but "G"
movies.<BR><BR>He started chain gangs so the inmates could do free work on
county and<BR>city projects.<BR><BR>Then he started chain gangs for women so
he wouldn't get sued for<BR>discrimination.<BR><BR>He took away cable TV until
he found out there was a federal court<BR>order that required cable TV for
jails. So he hooked up the cable TV again<BR>only let in the Disney channel
and the weather channel.<BR><BR>When asked why the weather channel he replied,
so they will know how<BR>hot it's gonna be while they are working on my chain
gangs.<BR><BR>He cut off coffee since it has zero nutritional value.<BR>When
the inmates complained, he told them, "This isn't the<BR>Ritz/Carlton. If you
don't like it, don't come back."<BR><BR>He bought Newt Gingrich' lecture
series on videotape that he pipes into<BR>the jails.<BR><BR>When asked by a
reporter if he had any lecture series by a Democrat,<BR>he replied that a
democratic lecture series might explain why a lot of<BR>the inmates were in
his jails in the first place.<BR><BR>More on the Arizona Sheriff:<BR><BR>With
temperatures being even hotter than usual in Phoenix (116 degrees<BR>just set
a new record), the Associated Press reports: About 2,000 inmates<BR>living in
a barbed-wire-surrounded tent encampment at the Maricopa County<BR>Jail have
been given permission to strip down to their government-issued<BR>pink boxer
shorts.<BR><BR>On Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing boxers were either curled
up on<BR>their bunk beds or chatted in the tents, which reached 138 degrees
inside<BR>the week before.<BR><BR>Many were also swathed in wet, pink towels
as sweat collected on their<BR>chests and dripped down to their pink
socks.<BR><BR>"It feels like we are in a furnace," said James Zanzot, an
inmate who<BR>has lived in the tents for 1 1/2 years. "It's
inhumane."<BR><BR>Joe Arpaio, the tough-guy sheriff who created the tent city
and long<BR>ago started making his prisoners wear pink, and eat bologna
sandwiches, is<BR>not one bit sympathetic He said Wednesday that he told all
of the inmates:<BR>"It's 120 degrees in Iraq and our soldiers are living in
tents too,<BR>and they have to wear full battle gear, but they didn't commit
any crimes,<BR>so shut your damned mouths!"<BR><BR>Way to go, Sheriff! Maybe
if all prisons were like this one there would<BR>be a lot less crime and/or
repeat offenders. Criminals should be punished<BR>for their crimes - not live
in luxury until it's time for their parole,<BR>only to go out and commit
another crime so they can get back in to live on<BR>taxpayers money and enjoy
things taxpayers can't afford to have for<BR>themselves.<BR><BR>If you agree,
pass this on. If not, just delete it. <FONT
color=#ff0000><COWARD><BR><BR></FONT>Sheriff Joe was just reelected
Sheriff in Maricopa County, Arizona.<BR><BR>
<P>
<HR>
<P></P>
<DIV>No virus found in this outgoing message.<BR>Checked by AVG
Anti-Virus.<BR>Version: 7.0.322 / Virus Database: 267.6.6 - Release Date:
6/8/2005</DIV>
<DIV><BR> </DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#ff0000>WHAT DO SHERIFF JOE ARPAIO AND THE QUAKERS HAVE IN
COMMON?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I have heard of this sheriff before, and many of the measures described are
widely reported. The rest sound like something he would do. So I would expect
the descriptions are accurate.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The closing is a type of <EM><STRONG>cowardice</STRONG></EM>, typical of
people who like to pump up whatever they advocate, but don't want to hear about
the <EM><STRONG>possibility they may be wrong</STRONG></EM>. As my 4th grade
teacher used to say, "My mind is made up. Don't confuse me with the facts." She
was not advocating this philosophy, nor did she practice it, but she was
pointing out a common mind set of the militantly ignorant.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#ff0000>My first question for the author of this piece: has the
rate of common misdemeanors declined significantly in Maricopa County while
Arpaio has been sheriff?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#ff8040>Felonies don't matter much, because you go to state
prison for those. You only serve your sentence in county jail for misdemeanors,
or as a condition of a stayed felony sentence.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#ff8040>If the crime rate has not declined, then spare us the
tired rhetoric that "Maybe if all prisons were like this one there would be a
lot less crime and/or repeat offenders." The proof is in the pudding. All I get
so far is, the writer is a sadist who enjoys seeing people humiliated, and picks
on people convicted of a crime <EM>because </EM>there will be less public
outrage than <EM>if it was done to anybody else</EM>.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#ff0000>Second question: What crimes have <EM>you</EM>
committed at some point during your lifetime? </FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#8080ff>Come on jack, we have ALL committed some offenses.
Don't play coy. Maybe you just cheat a <EM>little</EM> on your income taxes, or
haven't shiplifted in many years, or you don't see anything wrong with speeding
20 mph over the posted limit and haven't been caught very often. If nothing
else, everyone of us insists on doing one thing or another that we believe to be
right, which the government decrees to be a crime. So, read back Sheriff
Arpaio's methods, and tell me: is this how <EM>you</EM> deserve to be treated
should you actually get nailed for some of your own misdemeanors? (Oh, by the
way, our troops in the middle east do spend some time in terrible heat in body
armor, and some time in tents in direct sunlight, but those who return from a
mission alive also have air conditioned rec areas with half a dozen American
franchise food outlets, etc. They also have laptop computers, DVDs, USO tours,
email to friends and family. Maybe Arpaio would like to offer such amenities as
an incentive for good behavior?)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#ff0000>Third question: If your mother was arrested for some
misdemeanor, would you want <EM>her</EM> on one of these chain
gangs?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#ff8040>There are some nasty folks in jail (on both sides of
the bars), certainly a higher average than the general population, but many
women in jail are the mothers of some very righteous future or current citizens,
the daughters of some law-abiding concerned parents, etc. Don't be too quick to
cheer unless you are prepared to see your own mother in pink boxer shorts on a
chain gang in 120 degree heat on the evening news some night.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#ff0000>Fourth question: Does Arpaio keep a separate
air-conditioned section equipped with cold drink machines and serving smoked
turkey sandwiches for pre-trial detainees? </FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#8080ff>I know, some of those who go to trial are guilty as
charged, and will eventually be sentenced for it. Once they are sentenced,
punishment legitimately begins. But state prosecutors average a 60% conviction
rate, which means 40% are acquitted. Those who are acquitted do not deserve any
punishment at all, they are just in jail pending trial because they cannot
afford to make bail. I doubt if either Arpaio or his boosters really care about
guilt or innocence. They just like to hurt people, and anyone put into their
power with little or no recourse is to be treated accordingly.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#ff0000>Fifth question (cross-reference to #1 above): When
inmates are released, how do they respond to spouses, children, neighbors,
employers, and the general public?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#ff8040>If a thorough study revealed that they live the rest of
their lives as polite, peaceful, hard-working, gentle, caring, productive,
skilled people, then there can be no argument that the method was a correct one.
Again, the proof is in the pudding. On the other hand, if men come out of jail,
go home, beat their wives, lock them out of the house all day in 116 degree
heat, then maybe Arpaio is not doing his job right. If parents come out and beat
their kids, who then lose interest in school, drop their grades from B- average
to D+, and start stealing from the grocery store or vandalizing empty homes,
then maybe Arpaio is not doing his job right. If they come out with a
hair-trigger temper, and tend to break the jaw of the first person who takes a
parking space the newly-released inmate had their eye on, then maybe Arpaio
taught them the wrong lesson.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>So far, the bubbling rhetoric of Arpaio's fan club shows nothing except
that the inmates are being used to produce low-cost competition with WWF and
RAW, but the inmates are not being paid the kind of money that The Rock and
Stone Cold Steve Austin make.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Perhaps we should really be asking, are "jail" and "prison" as we know them
a particularly effective way to either punish or prevent crime, or to produce
law-abiding citizens for the future? Some Quaker reformers proposed time in a
"penitentiary" 200 years ago as an alternative to hanging, flogging, branding,
dunking, and transportation. I submit that prison is a failed experiment, so we
need something totally new. I would suggest the following alternatives, plus a
dozen or so others I haven't thought of that would also be of some help for some
people and reducing some crimes:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>1) For nonviolent offenders, community supervision of the kind West
Virginia is beginning to try out, which cuts costs to taxpayers by more than
50%, reduces recidivism, keeps the convicted individual in a position to support
their families, make restitution for their crimes, and pay for their supervision
out of real income -- with the possibility hanging over them that if they break
supervision, they can always be sent to a smaller and more secure lock-up
situation. Lock-up is not <EM>punishment</EM> in that situation -- it is a
measure of control and community protection because the individual cannot do
what is required.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>2) For those who need to be kept off the street for a time, because they
are truly a danger to the rest of us, small, specialized secured residential
institutions. If chronically arrested for stealing money and valuables, send
them to a vocational educational institution, one where the meals will be
adequate, not great, the sleeping quarters sanitary, not luxurious, intensive
study of ways to make more money honestly than they ever made on the streets
mandatory, and supervised release based on acquiring skills and landing a job.
For serial rapists and chronic pedophiles, a secured community where they can
expect to remain most or all of their lives, working at a real job, able to work
their way up to comfortable living quarters, but never ever allowed on the same
side of a brick wall as their intended victims. (that is not punishment either:
it is a common sense measure to isolate people who cannot or will not control
themselves. Punishment, if anything, would be paying a large part of their
income to the victims). For drug users, of course, an intensive secured
treatment program to which they can be summarily returned if they screw up, but
never ever denying them all hope of return to their families. Etc. (Ask anyone
who made a career of working as a prison guard: it is important to give inmates
some incentives and opportunities for recreation, otherwise the guards lives are
in much greater danger. A little respect can be a big help.)</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>3) For those who are a danger even to other inmates within such a system, a
very secure institution where keeping them controlled is more of a priority than
humiliating them with pink underwear. </DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>