Petty Crime Wave Hits Maricopa County

[BlackShanglan]

I'm first in line, damnit.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0114052pinkcuffs1.html

It's amazing how deeply inventive and delicious perverts can somehow convinvce themselves that they're just doing their jobs.

Please, I'm begging - someone do a photo expose on that lockup. I'll pay.

Shanglan

 

[BlackShanglan]

And jurisdiction be damned - arrest this guy first:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0114051fate1.html

It's a match made in heaven.

 

[TheEarl]

I'm first in line, damnit.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0114052pinkcuffs1.html

It's amazing how deeply inventive and delicious perverts can somehow convinvce themselves that they're just doing their jobs.

Please, I'm begging - someone do a photo expose on that lockup. I'll pay.

Shanglan

I love the fact that deputies had been half-inching the handcuffs. Those little perks that make the job all worthwhile eh?

The Earl

 

[Guest]

Hey flame me if ya wanna but I'd have to give the sherriff a standing ovation. Jail time should be embarassing. We're not sendind criminals to fuckin' boy scout camp. They SHOULD suffer indignities and humiliations. It's supposed to be punishment not a fuckin' vacation. I think he should make the inmates wear pink coveralls with pretty flowers on them too. Put them on chain gangs and parade them through the streets picking up trash. I think it should also be legal and acceptable for the general public to throw garbage at them.


Or should we dress prisoners in designer jeans and golf shirts and teach them to play tennis and croquet? Maybe we should throw tea parties for them and show just how much we really appreciate the splendid way they they commited their crime.

Oh, hell, let's just not even put them in jail. I fairly certain that if we ask them politely not to do those things anymore, they will be so overwhelmed by our hospitalty that they will just turn a new leaf and become the most upstanding members of the community.

Doncha think?

 

[rgraham666]

Your idea wouldn't work on me, Dran.

All it would do is make me hate the outside world even more.

 

[minsue]

I cringed when I saw this thread title, Shanglan.

I hate that man. I keep voting against him. Last election, every fucking police group and Republican in the state came out against him. It doesn't matter. He just keeps getting elected, by a landslide every fucking time.

Dran, I agree jail is not supposed to be pleasant. My issues come from the fact that #1 - most inmates in the County Jail system have not yet been convicted of anything and are therefore innocent in the eyes of the law and #2 - Joe Arpaio is an egocentric ass who has stated multiple times that what he is most proud of in his career is his fame. Not anything that he has done to get the attention, just the attention itself.

 

[Kassiana]

I live in Illinois, home of Most Known Innocents on Death Row. I don't believe in punishing people viciously even if they have committed some kind of crime. We know innocent people go to jail all the time. DWB (Driving While Black) sometimes is enough.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Minsue, I had no idea you were in his little flock.

I agree that even a policy that might or might not have its advantages makes me uneasy when it's wedded to rampant self-adulation. That said - mind if I come burglarize your house? It's all right, I will only steal that ugly present a relative sent you that you're too embrassed to throw out, and you can report me right away.

Shanglan

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Jail shouldn't be something you don't fear, especially if you have been there before. If you don't make it something people don't want to go through again, then it has no deterent effect. This wasn't a problem long ago, when prision was simply, awful. The problem there is that it became so dehumanizing, and dangerous, that it may have actually inspired more anger in inmates when they got out.

A line has to be drawn somewhere.

The main problem is the debate over where the priority of the penal system lies. In rehabilitation or in retribution.

Until that is defintivel answered, you will always have arguments over the effectiveness of any ploy.

From my own point of view, if wearing pink and eating bologna sandwiches while you are incarcerated makes it such a humiliating experience you don't want to go back, I'm all for it. Without doubt, it detracts from the coolness and macho image of being incarcerated. An image that is strongly exhorted by many gangs.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Cornholing, shivs, inside gangs, and sadistic wardens have been doing far more than these wankers could ever do to make jail universally feared in this day and age. Unless you get sent to rich white man minimum security or are enough of a bad ass to protect your own back 24/7 there isn't much hope of having "good times" that I know of.

Of course, I have never been to prison so maybe it does rain cake in there. But based on the thousands of horror stories I have heard and the handful of personal accounts, I'm in no hurry to check.

The beauty/folly of prison is that it spawns its own Hell.

 

[yui]

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0114052pinkcuffs1.html


Shanglan

This will either cut down on interdepartmental theft or drive up the price of the filched pink cuffs when they show up on eBay. And they will show up…

 

[minsue]

Jail shouldn't be something you don't fear, especially if you have been there before. If you don't make it something people don't want to go through again, then it has no deterent effect. This wasn't a problem long ago, when prision was simply, awful. The problem there is that it became so dehumanizing, and dangerous, that it may have actually inspired more anger in inmates when they got out.

A line has to be drawn somewhere.

The main problem is the debate over where the priority of the penal system lies. In rehabilitation or in retribution.

Until that is defintivel answered, you will always have arguments over the effectiveness of any ploy.

From my own point of view, if wearing pink and eating bologna sandwiches while you are incarcerated makes it such a humiliating experience you don't want to go back, I'm all for it. Without doubt, it detracts from the coolness and macho image of being incarcerated. An image that is strongly exhorted by many gangs.

I do agree with much of what you've said. Personally, I loved it when a co-worker had to spend the night in jail as part of her sentence for a DUI and came out ranting over the fact that it was so crowded and disgusting. She apparently always loved our sherrif until then. I was hard pressed to find any sympathy, even the kind of polite false sympathy reserved for those you work with. 24 hours in a holding cell for drunk driving seems like light punishment to me.

That said, the bologna sandwiches and the pink underwear (and now pink handcuffs) grate on me due to the fact that they are designed solely for publicity. Originally, the pink underwear was said to keep inmates from stealing the underwear when they get out. Well, shit. Just do what Pima County does and don't provide them with free underwear. No problem there, but you can't go on national tv bragging about that and you can't sell it in a bizarre county jail gift shop.

My issue with the food is simply that the sherrif boasts about how little is spent feeding inmates. Less than the taxpayers are paying to the sherrif's office per inmate to feed them. Otherwise meaning that they're taking taxpayer dollars for food, but spending them on other things. The sherrif's office is good at siphoning taxpayer funds, even when one doesn't count the taxpayer funded wrongful death suit settlements. The sherrif's office also worked out a juicy little deal with Qwest, the phone company, so that all calls out are collect and all collect calls (including those to lawyers) are at a higher rate, part of which qwest pays back to the sherrif's office. Most of those awaiting trial in the county jail have public defenders (which is why they're still sitting in jail instead of being out on bail) meaning that the sherrif managed himself a nice little budget increase at the expense of the PD's office and a sweet bonus for Qwest on top of it all at taxpayer expense.

Did I mention that I hate that man?

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I do agree with much of what you've said. Personally, I loved it when a co-worker had to spend the night in jail as part of her sentence for a DUI and came out ranting over the fact that it was so crowded and disgusting. She apparently always loved our sherrif until then. I was hard pressed to find any sympathy, even the kind of polite false sympathy reserved for those you work with. 24 hours in a holding cell for drunk driving seems like light punishment to me.

That said, the bologna sandwiches and the pink underwear (and now pink handcuffs) grate on me due to the fact that they are designed solely for publicity. Originally, the pink underwear was said to keep inmates from stealing the underwear when they get out. Well, shit. Just do what Pima County does and don't provide them with free underwear. No problem there, but you can't go on national tv bragging about that and you can't sell it in a bizarre county jail gift shop.

My issue with the food is simply that the sherrif boasts about how little is spent feeding inmates. Less than the taxpayers are paying to the sherrif's office per inmate to feed them. Otherwise meaning that they're taking taxpayer dollars for food, but spending them on other things. The sherrif's office is good at siphoning taxpayer funds, even when one doesn't count the taxpayer funded wrongful death suit settlements. The sherrif's office also worked out a juicy little deal with Qwest, the phone company, so that all calls out are collect and all collect calls (including those to lawyers) are at a higher rate, part of which qwest pays back to the sherrif's office. Most of those awaiting trial in the county jail have public defenders (which is why they're still sitting in jail instead of being out on bail) meaning that the sherrif managed himself a nice little budget increase at the expense of the PD's office and a sweet bonus for Qwest on top of it all at taxpayer expense.

Did I mention that I hate that man?

LOL,

Kinda implied.

 

[minsue]

Minsue, I had no idea you were in his little flock.

I agree that even a policy that might or might not have its advantages makes me uneasy when it's wedded to rampant self-adulation. That said - mind if I come burglarize your house? It's all right, I will only steal that ugly present a relative sent you that you're too embrassed to throw out, and you can report me right away.

Shanglan

Feel free, Shanglan, but keep in mind my cuffs aren't pink. I'll release and report you eventually, though....

 

[minsue]

LOL,

Kinda implied.

I was afraid it might have come off as fawning adulation.