Saturday, December 02, 2006

Now this is what I call justice.

A friend sent me this yesterday. Very interesting.

"TO THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH JOE ARPAIO, HE IS THE MARICOPA COUNTY SHERIFF( ARIZONA ) AND HE KEEPS GETTING ELECTED OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

These are some of the reasons why:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio created the "tent city jail" to save Arizona from
spending tens of million of dollars on another expensive prison complex.

He has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the inmates for
them.

He banned smoking and porno magazines in the jails, and took away their
weightlifting equipment and cut off all but "G" movies. He says: "they're
in jail to pay a debt to society not to build muscles so they can assault
innocent people when they leave."

He started chain gangs to use the inmates to do free work on county and city
projects and save taxpayer's money.

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 but
only allows the Disney channel and the weather channel.

When asked why the weather channel he replied: "so these morons will know
how hot it's gonna be while they are working on my chain gangs."

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, "This
isn't the Ritz/Carlton. If you don't like it, don't come back."

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 degrees just
set a new record for June 2nd), 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 pink boxer shorts were chatting in the tents, where temperatures reached 128 degrees."This is hell. It feels like
we live in a furnace," said Ernesto Gonzales, an inmate for 2
years with 10 more to go. "It's inhumane."

Joe Arpaio, who makes his prisoners wear pink, and eat bologna sandwiches,
is not one bit sympathetic. "Criminals should be punished for their crimes -
not live in luxury until it's 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 can't afford to have for themselves."

Wednesday he told all the inmates who were complaining of the heat in the
tents: "It's between 120 to 130 degrees in Iraq and our soldiers are living
in tents too, and they have to walk all day in the sun, wearing full
battle gear and get shot at, and they have not committed any crimes, so shut
your damned mouths!"

Way to go, Sheriff! If all prisons were like yours there would be a lot less
crime and we would not be in the current position of running out of prison spaces.

Sheriff Joe was just re-elected Sheriff in Maricopa County , Arizona"


Oh if only we could get away with that this side of the pond. The civil liberties groups would go apoplectic.

8 comments:

Jennytc said...

If only, indeed, Krip. It sounds like a breath of fresh air compared with all the softly softly rubbish foisted on us over here.

Brian said...

That is brilliant, pity it wouldn't happen over here.

Masher said...

Hey, he'd get my vote everytime! The states could do with more like him.

As you say, so could we. But it'd never happen.

krip said...

We cannot possibly be held responsible for treating prisoners like that, can we? ;)
If only........

Bazza said...

Not a single dissenting voice, there's a surprise. Sounds like a top bloke.

kennamatic said...

And no dissention from me either.

Don't suppose John Reid is bringing him in as an adviser.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Unknown said...

I am so delighted by this story, that I just HAD to google this guy. I found this:

PHOENIX, Arizona (May 15, 2007) -- A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department tells Access Hollywood that Sheriff Lee Baca has turned down an offer from the Sheriff in Maricopa County, Arizona to take Paris Hilton in as an inmate.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio made the offer in a conversation with the L.A. County Sheriff yesterday afternoon but it was "respectfully declined," according to Sheriff's spokesperson Steve Whitmore, because there would have been "too many legal hassles involved."

what a riot.