NEWS: Arizona Sheriff Deputies Use Pink Handcuffs

In order to facilitate easy recognition of inmates being transported to and from court, the Maricopa County Sheriff's department has begun using fluorescent pink handcuffs. Sheriff Joe Arpaio said that in addition to their visibility, he was loosing handcuff to his own deputies, who must buy their own, and other agencies. In addition, they make inmates wear pink boxer shorts and sleep on pink sheets.



I love this guy. He runs a tight ship. When housing costs got to high, he created a tent city for the inmates to live in. Food budget too high? They get 3 meals a day. All bologna on white bread, and apple and milk. He spends less than a dollar a day. Cable TV? One channel of religious broadcasting and you can forget the play station. Its punishment as its meant to be. Very few repeat offenders either.

Related News Links:
www.mcso.org

Oh, I bet those felons are just looking FABULIOUS in all that pink! I wonder what the ratio of black belts to brown pants is?Thats about as demoralizing for an inmate as you can get.

I think its a good way to knock some of the " Im a badass" attitude down a few notches. After all, who really wants to fight when all you have to wear, and sleep on, is pink? Any stats on inmate brawls or other such things?

There was a TV show on this guy. I man its brutal: open tents in that Arizona heat. The meal is the same day in day out 3 meals a day. No weights etc. Chain gangs and the like. Its really prison as I think it should be. Its truly punishment not this Club Med style that seems pervasive. He saves his county millions a year and the people love him!

I have heard about him before. Specifically, the Tent City. That man is a genuis! I think All the prisons should be a tent city surrounded by a 30 foot tall concrete wall. He is not beating them. There is no mistreatment. He is just making these felons live like it was 1735. So basically, he is giving them life without ANY ammenities. This guy is a real hard ass, but that is what we need in our prison systems.

This is a conspiracy led by Martha Stewart.
She has 'put the word out' on the jail grapevine.

Laugh all you want the guy is a thug, and btw sheriffs run county jails not prisons. These are misdemeanor offenders for the most part, and he does everything he can to humiliate and degrade prisoners. Maybe some of you don't get it yet but when you applaud one authourity figure doing things like that you end up with more doing the same. So laugh while you can... god knows I'll be laughing when you get caught for some minor infraction and end up in a desert camp

All I can say is if the parents dont teach the kids and they grow up to be crimials and the FIRST time they get cought they get this kind of treatment then few will be REPET offenders.
Ps have 6 boys here and its VERY unlikly any will ever be brought home by the police even when they were 2 they KNOW they wernt alowed to just take things from store shelfs even if they dident understand what stealing was yet at that age . Its very easy to have GREAT kids jusy make NO mean NO!!

LOl They had a visit from "queer eye for the law enforcement guy"?

I tell you what the man is running is own laws and his own piece of country he has a thing for domination and he is getting away with it I bet he is getting some self gratification for doing all that.

I don't see anything wrong with saving money and making the inmates feel a littler heat, but mark my worlds he will get out of hand one day or another.

By the way I have not problem with the pink but how about some neon green for a change.

In Maricopa County this guy is either loved or hated. There is no gray when it comes to Sheriff Joe.

I personally think that jail is for criminals, and it is not a club house. How can you rehabilitate a man if he gets better treatment in jail then he got on the street?

I have witnessed personally guys who were strung out junkies, that got locked up for a few months. They went in skinny, emaciated addicts, and came out well fed, bulked up, and with no remorse. Then when Sheriff Joe got elected, all of that stopped.

You need to remember this about Sheriff Joe, he is an elected official, and while many people hate him, enough like what he is doing to keep putting him in the office.

Originally posted by astral_ice
Laugh all you want the guy is a thug, and btw sheriffs run county jails not prisons. These are misdemeanor offenders for the most part, and he does everything he can to humiliate and degrade

Astral:

He makes them work
He limits recreation
Its not exactly dinner at Spagos

Face facts, they are in jail / prison (symantics) and are serving time, not spending a day at the country club. :shk: I for one would love to see more of it. Make jail something to not want to go to.

Originally posted by FredT
Face facts, they are in jail / prison (symantics) and are serving time, not spending a day at the country club. :shk: I for one would love to see more of it. Make jail something to not want to go to.

Would you really like more jails to follow his example?
Do you know what goes on at his jail?

Here's a few examples:

phoenixnewtimes.com
According to Patrick, the expert found that detention officers:
* Used force on inmates, even after they were completely restrained by handcuffs or restraint chairs. "Examples include use of a stun gun to a prisoner's testicles while in a restraint chair; using stun guns on prisoners in restraint chairs; punching or kicking prisoners in cuffs," Patrick wrote.

* Used more force than situations required. "Examples include punching and kicking inmates in the head, shoving or throwing prisoners against walls to gain control, rather than using standard restraint techniques," Patrick's letter said.

-----------------------
* Serious dental care can be delayed for more than a month. "On one or more occasions, numerous inmates broke or chipped teeth on rocks mixed in with their food. The jails, despite acknowledging that rocks were in fact contained in food, refused to fix inmates' broken teeth," Patrick writes.

azplace.net
Sheriff Joe and his posse webcasting a jail netcam showing female inmates use the toilet - assistant attorney general Thackeray asked Arpaio to shut the site (crime.com) down after getting complaints from activists who have condemned Jailcam as a violation of privacy rights of people who have not been charged with a crime. - Complaints about the site were collected by Donna Hamm, head of Middle Ground, an inmate rights group. Because some of the women in the holding cell could be juveniles,

Here are some more examples of what goes on there:

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Scott Norberg died of asphyxia in Madison Street Jail on 1 June 1996, after being tackled by 14 detention officers and placed in a restraint chair with a towel over his face. Although Norberg was reportedly uncooperative and engaged in bizarre behaviour, his behaviour and initial "passive resistance" does not appear to have warranted the extreme degree of force used, especially as he was already had his hands handcuffed behind his back and was lying on his stomach on the ground when dragged by officers from his cell. The autopsy report showed that he sustained numerous contusions and lacerations to his head, face, neck, and limbs, as well as burn marks indicating that he was stunned numerous times with a stun gun on different parts of his body.

Other cases where the use of force appeared unjustified or to have been disproportionate in the circumstances, include Eric Johnson, who in November 1994 reportedly had his face slammed into a concrete wall and his arm broken by detention officers in Central Intake after he was verbally abusive when asking for food; and David Hoyle who allegedly sustained broken teeth and spine and knee injuries after being kicked and beaten and stunned repeatedly with a stun device by officers in December 1994. Hoyle alleges that after being injured he was strapped into a restraint chair for five hours until a nurse ordered his removal to the infirmary for X-rays. In February 1995, David Dalbec is alleged to have sustained a broken nose and other injuries after being picked up and thrown against a wall for persistently falling asleep during processing at Central Intake; a stun gun was also allegedly used to wake him up. Bart Davis is alleged to have been assaulted by detention officers in May 1995 and to have sustained a serious eye injury after being found smoking a cigarette in Central Intake; he further alleges that he was hit with a stun gun before and after being strapped into a restraint chair. In the Johnson and Hoyle cases there is video taped evidence of force being used.

Are you sure this guy is even saving money?
This article from 2001 says he was several million over budget:

phoenixnewtimes.com
Over the past four years, Arpaio has spent several million dollars on publicity stunts and extravagant perks for sycophants. At the same time, he continued to spend millions propping up ineffective programs that cost far more than he claimed.

Along the way, he bought a howitzer with $15,000 tires and a $70,000 armored car, spent $3 million to move to a penthouse office with big-screen TVs and swanky furniture, approved several hundred thousand dollars' worth of pay increases for his command staff and spent more than a million dollars on dozens of new top-of-the-line Chevrolet and Ford take-home vehicles for his favorite staffers.

Joe Arpaio is an enigma here in Phoenix. Everyone hates the man, yet he manages to be re-elected over and over. He paints jail cells pink, makes the men wear pink underwear and everything revolves around pink.
I think the man has serious problems.

Originally posted by dgtempe
Joe Arpaio is an enigma here in Phoenix. Everyone hates the man, yet he manages to be re-elected over and over. He paints jail cells pink, makes the men wear pink underwear and everything revolves around pink.
I think the man has serious problems.

Hey reminds you of how everyone hates bush, and yet he is still relected...

its called a rigged election...

Ohh yes, and its cool how he treats inmates with care, and saved those tax dollars for more worth while things, ehh??

[edit on 14-1-2005 by ThichHeaded]

Yes, thich, a la Bush.

Its how people are re-elected now.

In yet another story about this guy and his cronies, they burned down a home and when a dog tried to leave the home, they drove it back into the fire where it was burned to death.

Fire ripped through the Ahwatukee home, leaving it a complete loss.

phoenixnewtimes.com
• Just after the tear gas canisters were shot, a fire erupted and destroyed a $250,000 home plus all the contents inside. (The home's occupants believe the tear gas canisters caused the fire. Phoenix fire officials say the blaze was probably started by a lighted candle that was knocked onto a bed during the confusion.)

• The armored personnel carrier careened down the street and smashed into a parked car after its brakes failed.

• And in the ultimate display of cruelty, a SWAT team member drove a dog trying to flee the home back into the inferno, where it met an agonizing death.

Deputies then reportedly laughed as the dog's owners came unglued as it perished in the blaze.

"I was crying hysterically," Andrea Barker, one of the dog's owners, tells me. "I was so upset. They [deputies] were laughing at me."

Making fun of the 10-month-old pit bull puppy's death wasn't enough.

Arpaio's goons then left the dog's body to rot in the ashes for the next five days of 105-degree temperatures. A pall of death hung over the neighborhood. It was a putrid reminder of Arpaio's reckless use of force and callous disregard for the public's welfare. Not to mention the heinous treatment toward the terrified dog.

Originally posted by phreak_of_nature
In Maricopa County this guy is either loved or hated. There is no gray when it comes to Sheriff Joe.

Not just in Maricopa county -- all over the country.
I love the guy.
It's jail, for crying out loud! They broke the law, it's not supposed to be a fun little vacation for 'em.

Originally posted by Banshee
Not just in Maricopa county -- all over the country.
I love the guy.
It's jail, for crying out loud! They broke the law, it's not supposed to be a fun little vacation for 'em.

I agree, I think he has made jails into jails, not Club Med.
But as we can see by the articles AceOfBase dug up from the highly liberal, pseudo intellictual rag, The New Times, many, many people in the Phoenix area hate him.
I personally don't put much credence into a free "newspaper" that has more adds for phone sex and stripers, then it does news.