Thursday, January 8, 2009

You gotta love this guy!

Sheriff Joe of Arpaio Arizona


**(I copy/pasted this from an email I got today. I wonder when all the jails will follow Sheriff Joe's lead? I think it's so inspiring that I wanted to share it on my blog.)**

You all remember Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona , who painted the jail cells pink and made the inmates wear pink prison garb. Well...SHERIFF JOE IS AT IT AGAIN!

Maricopa County was spending approx. $18 million dollars a year on stray animals, like cats and dogs. Sheriff Joe offered to take the department over, and the County Supervisors said okay.

The animal shelters are now all staffed and operated by prisoners. They feed and care for the strays. Every animal in his care is taken out and walked twice daily. He now has prisoners who are experts in animal nutrition and behavior. They give great classes for anyone who'd like to adopt an animal. He has literally taken stray dogs off the street, given them to the care of prisoners, and had them place in dog shows.

The best part? His budget for the entire department is now under $3 million. Teresa and I adopted a Weimaraner from a Maricopa County shelter two years ago. He was neutered, and current on all shots, in great health, and even had a microchip inserted the day we got him. Cost us $78. The prisoners get the benefit of about $0.28 an hour for working, but most would work for free, just to be out of their cells for the day. Most of his budget is for utilities, building maintenance, etc. He pays the prisoners out of the fees collected for adopted animals.

I have long wondered when the rest of the country would take a look at the way he runs the jail system, and copy some of his ideas. He has a huge farm, donated to the county years ago, where inmates can work, and they grow most of their own fresh vegetables and food, doing all the work and harvesting by hand. He has a pretty good sized hog farm, which provides meat, and fertilizer. It fertilizes the Christmas tree nursery, where prisoners work, and you can buy a living Christmas tree for $6-$8 for the Holidays, and plant it later. We have six trees in our yard from the Prison.

Yup, he was re-elected last year with 83% of the vote.

Now he's in trouble with the ACLU again. He painted all his buses and vehicles with a mural, that has a special hotline phone number painted on it, where you can call and report suspected illegal aliens. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement wasn't doing enough in his eyes, so he had 40 deputies trained specifically for enforcing immigration laws, started up his hotline, and bought 4 new buses just for hauling folks back to the border. He's kind of a 'Git-R Dun' kind of 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!
THIS IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY:

He 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 and 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 letting in the Disney and 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 the Chain Gang".

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's lecture series on videotape; that he pipes into the jails for the inmates to enjoy! Not!

When asked by a reporter if he had any lecture series by a Democrat, he replied "a democratic lecture series might explain why a lot of the inmates are in his jail in the first place."


With temperatures being even hotter than usual in Phoenix (116 Degrees), 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 chatting 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 year. 'It's Inhumane.' he stated.

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 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 come back to live on taxpayers money and enjoy things some taxpayers can't afford to have for themselves.

2 comments:

Nursing Class of December 2011 said...

Oh man! I just love Sheriff Joe. He is really a brilliant man. I honestly don't understand why more prisons haven't followed his lead. Perhaps, as "the people" it is our responsibility to demand that similar changes be made. After all, it is OUR money that pays for these prisoners to be in prison. They have more crap than many people just struggling to get by everyday. I know that I can't afford cable TV (not that we would have it anyway...) or a gym membership and these guys and gals have both and more! They are in prison to be punished for something that they did wrong and I think that Sheriff Joe has it all right. Don't pamper the buggers, make them work for their keep just like they would if they were on the outside. Make it hard on them. I loved his reference back to our soldiers in Iraq. He is so right there! Go Sheriff Joe and AZ...Keep on electing him!

jewelstreet said...

I've heard of him before. He rocks! I've never understood why you make prisons so nice when the reason they are there is because they weren't nice.

Thanks for that post!