[GCFL-discuss] Pink Sheriff

[gcfl-discuss at gcfl.net]

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. 

Siarlys

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "Vicki" <vfrank at new.rr.com>

Is there any truth to this does not sound likely or just another computer
thing.


Subject: Re elected Sheriff

TO THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH JOE ARPAIO,
HE IS THE MARICOPA ARIZONA COUNTY SHERIFF
AND HE KEEPS GETTING ELECTED OVER AND OVER.
THESE ARE THE REASONS WHY:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio (in Arizona) who created the "tent city 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. 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."

He bought Newt Gingrich' lecture series on videotape 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 might explain why a lot of
the inmates were in his jails in the first place.

More on the Arizona Sheriff:

With temperatures being even hotter than usual in Phoenix (116 degrees
just set a new record), the Associated Press reports: 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 Wednesday, 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 are in a furnace," said James Zanzot, an inmate who
has lived in the tents  for 1 1/2  years. "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 Wednesday 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!"

Way to go, Sheriff! Maybe if all prisons were like this one there would
be a lot less crime and/or repeat offenders. Criminals should be punished
for their crimes - not live in luxury until it's time for their parole,
only to go out and commit another crime so they can get back in to live
on
taxpayers money and enjoy things taxpayers can't afford to have for
themselves.

If you agree, pass this on. If not, just delete it. <COWARD>

Sheriff Joe was just reelected Sheriff in Maricopa County, Arizona.





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WHAT DO SHERIFF JOE ARPAIO AND THE QUAKERS HAVE IN COMMON?

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.

The closing is a type of cowardice, typical of people who like to pump up
whatever they advocate, but don't want to hear about the possibility they
may be wrong. 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.

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?

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.

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 because there will be less public outrage
than if it was done to anybody else.

Second question: What crimes have you committed at some point during your
lifetime? 

Come on jack, we have ALL committed some offenses. Don't play coy. Maybe
you just cheat a little 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 you 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?)

Third question: If your mother was arrested for some misdemeanor, would
you want her on one of these chain gangs?

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.

Fourth question: Does Arpaio keep a separate air-conditioned section
equipped with cold drink machines and serving smoked turkey sandwiches
for pre-trial detainees? 

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.

Fifth question (cross-reference to #1 above): When inmates are released,
how do they respond to spouses, children, neighbors, employers, and the
general public?

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.

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.

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:

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 punishment
in that situation -- it is a measure of control and community protection
because the individual cannot do what is required.

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.)

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. 
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