Re: OT - Sheriff in Maricopa County, Arizona.


"Ron Recer" <ron48@xxxxxxx> wrote

He stopped smoking and porno magazines in the jails. Took away
their
weights. Cut off all but "G" movies.

Many/most prisons and jails no longer allow tobacco products or
smoking inside the facility.

I know that's true in jails. Is it also true in prisons? For
example, both the city and county jails in Las Vegas have banned
smoking, but the last I knew, the state prison still permitted it. I
left the Arizona Prison system 20 years ago, so things have probably
changed a lot, but there was smoking there at that time.


He started chain gangs so the inmates could do free work on county
and
city projects.

Chain gangs are perhaps the biggest farce perpetuated on the public
by politicians. It costs a fortune to run a 'chain gang'. Referred
to in the business as working inmates 'under the gun'. Inmates are
basically free labor, but you have to provide transportation to the
work site, security officers to guard them, people knowledgeable
with the task at hand to supervise the work and inspect the finished
product. The work day is generally very short because the inmates
have to be searched going in and out of the prison and all tools
have to be checked in and out at the work site.

The system I retired from finally gave in to political pressure and
created a 'chain gang' to clear brush encroaching on highways.
First, you really can't chain inmates together and do much of
anything, so you have to guard them. They may try running to escape
and you need to be able to catch/shoot them. Thus we had to obtain
horses for guards with shotguns. Then we needed a horse trailer to
transport the horses and a pickup to tow the trailer. Next came a
bus to transport the inmates. Then a trailer for the tools and
port-a-potty (you don't want indecent exposure incidents along the
highway). When you add up the costs for horses, vehicles, trailers,
tools and the ongoing salary and benefits for the guards and
supervisors you have an expensive operation. And remember, inmates
are NOT the most motivated workers!

We did have success using minimum/community security level inmates
for trash pickup crews along highways. Due to the security level
these crews only require one staff person to drive the vehicle and
supervise the crew. Often the staff person was a Department of
Transportation employee using a DOT vehicle and cost us nothing.

I suspect that Maricopa County jail (Arpaio's jail), they only use
people that have been convicted and then, since its a county jail,
they will all be misdemeanor convictions. I would guess that means a
minimum of security. However, I agree with all you said about "chain
gangs". I worked for the AZ State Prison at Florence for 11 years.
We had several gangs from both maximum and medium security. (They
were known as "gun gangs" because of the mounted guards with shotguns
and .308 rifles.) Everything you mentioned (horse trailers, buses,
tool trailers, port a johns, etc) fit the situation in Florence to a
tee. Minimum security inmates that might have been gang workers ended
up working on the farms.

In Nevada, the only gangs were minimum security crews that worked for
the Division of Forestry. They did road clean up on state highways
and also did maintenance and cleanup in state parks. Being Minimum
security, they went out with only one or two supervision people and
they were from Division of Forestry.



In prisons, TV/cable isn't provided for the enjoyment of inmates.
It is an aid to staff in that it occupies the inmates and they spend
less time plotting against the prison staff.

Well Said


If you were to check, the jail inmates he puts in tents are the very
lowest security level and is done for PR. It isn't that most
prison's don't want to put inmates in tents because it might be
uncomfortable, it is that you can't do a 'lock down' when you have
them in tents. If there is a problem you have a gang of hundreds of
inmates with no way of controlling them. Remember, staff inside the
fence don't carry weapons of any kind because it is too dangerous.

At Florence, for a few years (maybe still, I haven't been back in 20
years) we had both minimum and medium security inmates living in
tents.

Bruce



.

Relevant Pages

  • "New Orleans: Prisoners Abandoned to Floodwaters" (Human Rights Watch)
    ... NEW ORLEANS: PRISONERS ABANDONED TO FLOODWATERS ... Officers Deserted a Jail Building, Leaving Inmates Locked in Cells ... Parish Prison compound, reported that as of Monday, August 29, there ...
    (soc.culture.cuba)
  • "New Orleans: Prisoners Abandoned to Floodwaters" (Human Rights Watch)
    ... NEW ORLEANS: PRISONERS ABANDONED TO FLOODWATERS ... Officers Deserted a Jail Building, Leaving Inmates Locked in Cells ... Parish Prison compound, reported that as of Monday, August 29, there ...
    (soc.culture.cuba)
  • WSJ: Italy Makes It Hard For Jailbirds to Stay in Jail
    ... Italy Makes It Hard For Jailbirds to Stay in Jail ... ROME -- Less than two years ago, Italy's prison system faced a crisis: ... whom prosecutors accuse of being a member of a Mafia ... "This is the proof that court sentences are fiction," says Mr. Tinti. ...
    (alt.true-crime)
  • Terror1fica experiencia para los prisioneros
    ... Leaving Inmates Locked in Cells ... Corinne Carey, researcher, U.S. Program, Human Rights Watch ... Prison compound, reported that as of Monday, August 29, there were no ... Corrections, which oversaw the evacuation, and the Orleans Sheriff"s ...
    (soc.culture.venezuela)
  • Unfuckingbelievable: Bush junta says, "accept Jesus" and get out of jail free
    ... Christian program in an Iowa prison, Mark Earley, president of Prison ... Earley's analysis of judicial decisions dealing with religion and public ... InnerChange, Pratt declared, is suffused with religion. ... spiritual, emotional, and physical lives of hundreds of Iowa inmates. ...
    (alt.politics)