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Old March 16, 2009, 05:32 AM   #7
JuanCarlos
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Join Date: July 22, 2006
Posts: 2,459
Quote:
I have no sympathy for those incarcerated. Tent cities, pink jumpsuits, forced labor, no TV . . . none of those seem to drastic to me. In the county I live in, they floated a bond issue to build a new jail and sheriff office complex that was voted down by a wide margin. The county went ahead and built it anyway and committed the county to the debt on the vote of the commissioners alone. Nobody here had the bankroll to challenge it in court and enjoin construction; so we now have a new jail and plush sheriff offices and debt that the taxpayers didn't want. I'd rather have had mounted sheriff's deputies patrolling on horseback through tent cities with '76s and dogs. Problem is the feds took the state to task a few years back for maintaining inadequate places of confinement and mandated that more money be spent. I wish we had the old ones back and the feds housed in 'em.
I think the problem some have with Arpaio's jail is that, well, it's a jail. Not a prison. It's my understanding that jails primarily house two types of inmates: those whose crimes warrant sentences too short to justify sending them to the "real" prison, and those who are being detained for trial.

Now, I can understand not caring about the former. But the latter? Those are people who are, in theory, currently innocent of any crime. People who may well be released after being acquitted. So prisoner treatment in jails is a pretty serious civil rights issue, since the level of due process required to land you in jail for a night or few is pretty much non-existent.
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