JOE ARPAIO

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.

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

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, 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 2007), the Associated Press reported: 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 the Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing pink boxer shorts were overheard 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.'

The same day 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.

America’s Toughest Sheriff

You probably know him as “America’s Toughest Sheriff,” a name given to him
years ago by the media. It’s a name he certainly has earned as head of the
nation’s third largest Sheriff’s Office which employs over 3000 people. But even
before he became Sheriff in 1993, Joe Arpaio was one tough lawman. After
serving in the U.S. Army from 1950 to 1953, and as a Washington, D.C., and Las
Vegas, NV, police officer for almost five years, Arpaio went on to build a federal
law enforcement career and a reputation for fighting crime and drug trafficking
around the world.

He began his career as a federal narcotics agent, establishing a stellar record in

infiltrating drug organizations from Turkey to the Middle East to Mexico, Central, and South America to
cities around the U.S. His expertise and success led him to top management positions around the world
with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). He concluded his remarkable 32-year federal career
as head of the DEA for Arizona.
In 1992 Arpaio successfully campaigned to become the Sheriff of Maricopa County. Since then he has
been re-elected to an unprecedented four 4-year terms. During his tenure as Sheriff of Maricopa County,
Arpaio has consistently earned extraordinarily high public approval ratings.

With over four decades experience in law enforcement, Arpaio knows what the public wants, “The public is
my boss,” he says, “so I serve the public.” He has served them well by establishing several unique
programs.

Arpaio has over 10,000 inmates in his jail system. In August, 1993, he started the nation’s largest Tent City
for convicted inmates. Two thousand convicted men and women serve their sentences in a canvas
incarceration compound. It is a remarkable success story that has attracted the attention of government
officials, presidential candidates, and media worldwide.

Of equal success and notoriety are his chain gangs, which contribute thousands of dollars of free labor to
the community. The male chain gang, and the world’s first-ever female and juvenile chain gangs, clean
streets, paint over graffiti, and bury the indigent in the county cemetery.

Also impressive are the Sheriff’s get tough policies. For example, he banned smoking, coffee, movies,
pornographic magazines, and unrestricted TV in all jails. He has the cheapest meals in the U.S. too. The
average meal costs about 15 cents, and inmates are fed only twice daily, to cut the labor costs of meal
delivery. He even stopped serving them salt and pepper to save tax payers $20,000 a year.

Another program Arpaio is very well known for is the pink under shorts he makes all inmates wear. Years
ago, when the Sheriff learned that inmates were stealing jailhouse white boxers, Arpaio had all inmate
underwear dyed pink for better inventory control. The same is true for the Sheriff’s handcuffs. When they
started disappearing, he ordered pink handcuffs as a replacement. And later, when the Sheriff learned the
calming, psychological effects of the colour pink—sheets, towels, socks— everything inmates wear, except
for the old-fashioned black and white striped uniform, were dyed pink.

Arpaio has started another controversial program, the website WWW.MCSO.org, so that all those arrested
(about 300 per day) are recorded on the Sheriff’s website as they are booked and processed into jail. Just
under a million hits daily come into the website, making it one of the most visible law enforcement sites on
the World Wide Web.

In addition to these tough measures, the Sheriff has launched rehabilitative programs like “Hard Knocks
High,” the only accredited high school under a Sheriff in an American jail, and ALPHA, an anti-substance-
abuse program that has greatly reduced recidivism.

As chief law enforcement officer for the county, Arpaio continues to reduce crime with hard-hitting
enforcement methods. His deputies and detectives have solved several high-profile murder cases,
including nine child murders. The posse, whose ranks have increased to 3,000 members under Arpaio, is
the nation’s largest volunteer posse. Posse men and women help in search and rescue and other
traditional police work as well as in special operations like rounding up deadbeat parents, fighting
prostitution, patrolling malls during holidays, and investigating animal cruelty complaints. The posse’s
contributions are invaluable and essentially free to taxpayers.

No wonder Sheriff Arpaio has been profiled in over 2,000 U.S. and foreign newspapers, magazines, and TV
news programs. His leadership and the excellent work of his staff have catapulted the Maricopa County
Sheriff’s Office into the ranks of elite law enforcement agencies.

On a personal note, Sheriff Arpaio and his wife Ava have been married for over 48 years and have two
children, both residing in the Phoenix area. The Arpaios have four grandchildren.

Arpaio looks forward to many more years as Sheriff of Maricopa County.