Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio Bans Mail
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio Get Tough on Crime
Detainees at his county facilities in Phoenix, as of May 1, can no longer send or receive traditional mail. Instead, all outgoing communication must be written on one of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's postcards; for those who don't know, Sheriff Arpaio has produced, at taxpayer expense, a series of propagandistic postcards, which feature images of either Arpaio himself hamming it up for the camera or that of inmates out in the tents or working on a chain-gang with the merry message "Welcome to Sunny Arizona!" superimposed above their heads. Not only that, all incoming mail must be sent in postcard form as well, and mind you, stamps are not allowed! All incoming mail must be run through a postal meter.
Sheriff Arpaio has yet to publicly comment on the new policy, but his office stated that handling envelopes puts his detention officers at risk. How exactly handling the mail is supposed to be a risk to his officers was never explained. By all accounts, Arpaio's people have been handling thousands of pieces of mail every day for years now without incident.
Some observers have opined that Sheriff Arpaio could be attempting to save money. They argue that this is just another of his cost-cutting measures. Few officers will be needed to handle the mail under these new regulations. And this may be true, but, if history tells us anything, most of Arpaio's cost-cutting measures actually result in added expenditures.
The prevailing opinion is that is nothing more than yet another one of Sheriff Arpaio's punitive measures. How mean can he get, or How tough can he get, depending on your perspective. Arpaio started with pink underwear for all inmates, then he introduced the tents, forcing inmates to sleep on Korean War surplus cots in the great outdoors. Arpaio then re-invented the chain gang, and purposely withheld his boloney sandwiches from his inmates until mold began to appear on the meat. These are Sheriff Joe Arpaio's ideas on "we can win the war against crime."
In regards to Sheriff Arpaio's new policy regarding inmate mail, Dan Pochoda, the legal director of the ACLU, said he and his staff are looking into the matter, but he's not optimistic, explaining, "bad policies don't translate into constitutional wrongs." Apparently, the law regarding inmates' rights to communication with the outside world are too vague to legally challenge Joe Arpaio's new policy.
What's probably most important to understand about Arpaio's "war against crime" is that, at any given time, most of the people in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's custody are those who could not afford bail and are awaiting trial. That is, presumed innocent till proven guilty. Or are they?
Published by Thos Robert
Thos Robert is an avid traveler who is presently dividing his time between Prague, Czech Republic, Boston, Massachusetts, and Phoenix, Arizona. View profile
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8 Comments
Post a CommentWhat most of you supporters don't realize or know is that Arpaios' jail history is very sinister do some research before you go supporting a megalomaniac like Joe, if just one of you had to do time in his "re education" camp you would change your tones! God Bless America
GO SHERIFF JOE! mail is a way prisoners get drugs into the prison. For you idiots the tent city is for those with convictions of violent crime. I dont have TV and my uncle lives in the middle of nowhere so he doesn't get mail delivered to his house, should we sue the government?
Sheriff Joe: We love what you are doing for our city and our state. Wish we had more like you. Run for president of the U.S. and I will vote for you. It is your honesty that really gets these dishonest politicians going and they don't know what to do with you. Thank you for all you are doing.
Sheriff Arpaio is my hero! Ever since he spent time in his own tent city (even though he is no criminal) just to prove to those who thought he was cruel and inhumane, that he's not being cruel or inhumane. Since he did that, I have loved him and I think that America needs more like him in law enforcement! I wish we had a Sheriff up here just like him!
sheriff joe is way out of line. Buy all the sheriff Joe stuff you can on ebay because when the feds arrest him it will go way up in value. He will get his karma along with all the anti christ people that work the Jails. They do nothing but make fun of inmates that read the bible and pray for forgiveness etc
They make it real hard for the churchs to come in and help to get the inmates back on the right track. God Bless you Joe because your going to need it.
As a former 45 year Arizona resident, Sheriff Joe's antics and violations of citizen's rights during his 'investigations' and even in the treatment of MISDEMEANOR, mind you, prisoners in his facilities borders on Nazism......he believes in 'guilty' until proven innocent, and also his 'savings' are for his budgetary needs, not for the cost savings to the Arizona citizens, because they have picked up the tab for all the civil lawsuits which have been filed against him over the years.
He's a buffoon, and not a professional, and Sheriff Joe has a ego larger than the State of Texas, to which I would hope he will eventually be driven out of Arizona, and eventually reside, where he can practice his 'lone star', rather than Constitutional, type of 'justice.'
Break the law, go to jail, lose privledges of being a citizen. Rehabilitation is in the punishment. Simple. Guess what? The really inconvenient, unpleasant memory of being in JAIL deters the ex-con from illegal activity.... see how that works??
Sheriff Joe Arpaio is inscrupulous and severly maladjusted.
There is absolutly NO relationship between inhibiting mail and controlling the inmate population.
I have always believed it was important in the rehabilitation and re-introducing of prisoners back into society that the family played an important role. Preventing mail is cruel and unusual punishment. This is nothing new to the Sheriff, in his mind he believes all of the punisments he implements help to deter crime.
Statistics prove however his rehabilitation and repeat offender rates are the same or higher than the national average.
The Sheriff is a publicity hound and a loudmouth.