August 2, 2012
By Joe Hagan
...The guided tour (click here) of Arpaio's legend has officially begun. Here, next to his desk, is the hand-painted sign of draconian rules for Tent City, the infamous jail he set up 20 years ago, in which some 2,000 inmates live under canvas tarps in the desert, forced to wear pink underwear beneath their black-and-white-striped uniforms while cracking rocks in the stifling heat. HARD LABOR, the sign reads. NO GIRLIE MAGAZINES!...
I don't care about his celebrity. He likes money. What I do care about are the human rights violations by this man. He is not representative of prison guards or sheriffs or deputy sheriffs that look after the security of prisons and jails and take care of inmates, SOME INNOCENT PEOPLE are inmates, too.
If people focus on the atrocities of this man the world will pay attention and those that suffered unnecessarily, especially the innocent people, will be viewed as the real focus and not a sensational person that loved the limelight more than he loved his job.
I don't know of many jails or prisons that allow girly magazines either. Arpaio mistakes real prison guards for the enlisted military.
Prison guards, jail officials, wardens do not pride themselves on cruelty. Quite the contrary. They pride themselves on instilling the sense of law, the path forward and rehabilitation when it is possible. There are some jails with lawlessness problems, but, they are full of hard core criminals that were born and grew up in crime ridden areas.
Guards and Sherrif Deputies worry about the health and mental health of their inmates. They run raids to secure any dangerous items that could be used as a weapon against another inmate. They take inmates to doctor's appointments and they worry about their mental health. For the most part, federal, state and city jails and prisons are run by people that care about their reputations as reasonable lawmen and law women.
The atrocities under Arpaio are unbelievable. Animal shelters are more humane. Arpaio is not important. His atrocities are.
