VISIT WWW.JOEARPAIO.ORG AND SEE WHY MARICOPA CTY WON'T RE-ELECT HIM AGAIN!

AND TELL YOUR FRIENDS.

WWW.JOEARPAIO.ORG
PHX, Arizona

In office or in jail, you decide.

He claims to be 'America's Toughest Sheriff', a name given to him by the local Phoenix media years ago. It's a name he certainly has not earned as the head of the nation's fourth largest Sheriff's Office. Arpaio has not saved taxpayers money through his efforts or lack thereof, nor has Arpaio created a county safer for the public. That can be attributed to the overall drop in crime and the economy in general. What he has done is create smokescreens to hide his true attributes. For those of you who don't know his background, let's review it.

He won the election in 1992. Four years later, in 1996, his policies had began to show patterns of abuse. No one even ran against him when he sought a second term as Sheriff, probably because by then he had already convinced an unsuspecting public he was actually protecting them.

Arpaio's only strengths are: his abilities to fool the public and public officials; create smokescreens; and intimidate potential foes with his department's power. He is a politician at heart, not a law enforcement officer. Arpaio is the American version of the Taliban.

He claims to save the county money by touting pink inmate underwear and housing inmates in tents outdoors in 110 degree summer heat. Numerous lawsuits against Arpaio and Maricopa County have cost untold amounts of taxpayer cash, and resources spent defending this idiot while ruining the reputation of the county and its citizens. The benefits of having Arpaio around have yet to be seen. Arpaio started the nation's largest tent city after copying another county program for pre-trial & convicted inmates. Those arrested in Maricopa County awaiting trial (pre-trial) are forced into the same tent city along with convicted inmates which Arpaio brags about. Over 1200 un-convicted & convicted men, women and juveniles serve time in a canvas incarceration compound. It is a disgrace and embarrassment to government officials statewide, and a violation of prisoner civil rights. Even though you may not believe prisoners have rights, you could be there just as easily under Arpaio rule.

Apaio and Maricopa County are also being sued for $1.4 Billion for webcams in his main jail that show women using the toilet while being held in holding cells. It is stupidity like this that makes Arpaio more of a liability than he is worth.

The same is true for his chain gangs, which work six days a week contributing thousands of dollars of slave labor to the community. In fact the same has been said about the Unicor Program used by the Federal Bureau of Prisons which has come under attack by the business community nationally. Business leaders state it robs jobs from the public at large through the use of prison labor, which is unregulated. The male chain gang and the world's first ever female chain gang clean streets, paint over graffiti, and bury the indigent in the county cemetery, along with providing Arpaio with needed publicity in order to fool the public into thinking they need to keep him in office.

Arpaio has alienated the public at large so much with his J. Edgar Hoover tactics that he has to have 24 hour sheriff's deputy bodyguards at taxpayer expense, again turning whatever savings made in its jails & sheriff's department to a negative.

Joe Arpaio can be compared to J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI because like Hoover, Arpaio not only tries to rule his department with an iron fist, but bullies the county's elected officials and public at large with fear tactics and labels opposition as anti-law enforcement. Arpaio will label anyone who brings to light his actions as someone against law enforcement, and lawful activities. Yet Arpaio himself has been and still may be the subject of Department of Justice investigations for civil rights violations for the deaths occurring in his jails. The pictures of some of the dead inmates are at best criminal. Abusive treatment of prisoners, regardless of the reason, is not good or acceptable law enforcement practice, nor is it part of the training. Terrorists held by the U.S. Gov't for the September 11th attacks receive better treatment than some of the prisoners held by Joe Arpaio.

Equally concerning are the Sheriff's policies, policies which may have caused the deaths of inmates in custody in his Maricopa County jail. Policies which both the sheriff's department and county government guard closely due to the Dept. of Justice investigations, countless news stories and public outcry. Arpaio doesn't believe in coddling criminals, but he doesn't believe in playing by the rules either, frequently ignoring federal law. He banned smoking, coffee, pornographic magazines, movies and unrestricted television in all jails, all of which does nothing to deter crime. He claims to have the cheapest meals in the country, yet when you average in the cost of the lawsuits because of those meals, they aren't cheap at all. Maybe Arpaio should consider running a fat farm instead of a jail system.

As for his deputies, Arpaio has increased salaries, and convinced the county board of supervisors to allow his right-hand man to retire from the county at full pay while still receiving partial pay from the county as a consultant. He has encouraged expenses for non-work related education by providing incentive pay, but has not improved equipment or the fleet, and has elevated his office into a so-called full-service, state-of-the-art, world renowned law enforcement agency. Unfortunately, these are the same jailers who have had inmates die while in their control, based on Arpaio's Hoover mentality.

Also under Arpaio, the posse has grown to some 3200 members, the nation's largest volunteer posse. These men and women, most of whom are the same senior citizens who voted for Arpaio last election in Sun City. The posse's contribution is questionable even though Arpaio says it's free, There are sure a lot of these people running around Maricopa County playing cop when they don't have the proper training or credentials. In Arpaio's latest tenure, one was even found to have falsified his background to obtain entrance to Sheriff Joe's Posse and molested a female inmate in a sheriff's car.

All in all, Joe Arpaio has cost the taxpayers of Maricopa County far more than he claims to have saved them, which make his continued tenure unnecessary. Another four years as the county's sheriff or anything else for that matter would only further damage an already bad situation for everyone. Arpaio says his plans include several more years as the head of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, and God help the citizens of Maricopa County if that occurs.

All law enforcement officers should be beyond reproach, the good ones should be even more so, something that Arpaio is not and probably never will be.

A DISGRACE TO LAW ENFORCEMENT & MARICOPA COUNTY

Click here to read other Rip Off Reports on Sheriff Joe Arpaio