'elf Expressions Ezine

You all remember Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona, who painted the jail cells pink and made the inmates wear pink prison garb. Well ... he's at it again!

Oh, there's much more to know about Sheriff Joe!

Maricopa County was spending approximately $18mil. 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 their 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 into the care of prisoners, and has even had them place in dog shows.

The best part? His budget for the entire department is now under $3mil. Teresa and I adopted a Weimaraner from a Maricopa County shelter two years ago. He was neutered, 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 twenty-eight cents 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's painted all his busses and vehicles with a mural that contains a special hotline phone number, where you can call and report suspected illegal aliens. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement wasn't doing enough in his eyes, so he had forty deputies trained specifically for enforcing immigration laws, started up his hotline, and bought four new busses just for hauling folks back to the border. He's kind of a "Git-R-Dun" 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:

Sheriff Joe, who created the "Tent City Jail," has jail meals down to forty cents a serving and charges the inmates for them.

He stopped smoking and porno magazines in the jail. He took away their weights and cut off all but G-rated 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."

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 a year. "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 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 taxpayer money and enjoy things taxpayers can't afford to have for themselves.