Question One
Prior to the adoption of the prison system, jails were used for temporary detention, corporal punishment and imposition of fines. Capital crimes were punishable through public torture, humiliation, embarrassment, flogging, branding and mutilation. These forms of punishment draw from puritan punishment practices, which encouraged public shaming of wayward sheep. This is not unlike Arpaio’s use of perp walking, pink underwear and chain gangs for inmates serving sentences of up to a month to humiliate and use them to serve as an example to mothers and children that see them on the highway to avoid crime. Specifically, chain gangs hack back to the slavery era and the Southern, postbellum system meant at controlling, oppressing and exploiting slave/inmate labour. The reinstitution of chain gangs raises constitutional and policy concerns, in common with the tendency by correctional authorities to employ increasingly cruel punishments. There is evidence in Maricopa County that the system breaks inmates, but the fact that other forms of punishment are even more severe, forces inmates to choose the chain gang.
Use of jails or public workhouses that sought to “isolate” and “punish” emerged in 1777. They were meant for detaining beggars, vagrants, rogues and other offenders for longer durations during which period, inmates would repent and rehabilitate. Two separate models emerged i.e. the solitary and the silent systems. The solitary system involved inmates being kept in complete solitude. The use of “lock-downs”, in Maricopa prisons resembles this system, which forces some inmates to volunteer to read and reflect on their lives. However, According to O'Toole (2006), this system is associated with numerous psychological and physical problems including depression, stress, heart palpitations, panic attacks, hostility, cognitive disturbances, perceptual distortions and psychosis.
The competing system that emerged in 1823 was the congregate/silent system, by which inmates were assigned separate sleeping cells, but were required to labour during the day. It rendered imprisonment both lonely and suffocating, coupled by hard labour. Deprivations of basic comforts also coupled deprivation of freedom. Similarly, Sheriff Joe is reported to have ordered deprivation of cigarettes, skin magazines, coffee, movies and even hot lunches. The system broke prisoners and since the resources necessary to maintain such facilities was too much, it collapsed.
In its place, the Pentonville system emerged in 1842, which introduced defining architecture for prisons and redefined the purpose of imprisonment to include incarceration of suspects, deterrence and rehabilitation of offenders. The Panopticon prison design was geared at using building designs to promote efficiency in the use of public resources by reducing the number of observers necessary to man prisons. Isolation was also thought to promote moral reform. Viewing a large number of prisoners at one glance made it easy to surveillance and control. The Maricopa County’s prisons and tent cities are designed in lines with the centralized control system, with a tall fence around the facilities and centralized control/command. The silent system sought to restrict communication.
Practices that mirror the silent or congregate (Auburn) system, where inmates were assigned separate sleeping cells, but were required to labour during the day. The construction of the tent city or “concentration camp” to house inmates/chain gangs is also representative of this model. The high number of inmates and the desperate obsession with cutting costs largely served to reduce the effectiveness of this system and subsequent systems. Consequently, overcrowding and lack of access to medication and the failure of the system to differentiate between minor crimes and capital offences explains its failure. In Maricopa County, a court ruled that Sheriff Joe’s jails fall short of the required standards. The quality of food, recreation areas (that Joe reduces to electricity-generating tents), psychiatric and medical care, were inadequate. In addition, the court established that improvements were only made in areas where no additional costs were involved.
This system also came at a time when offenders were increasingly viewed as enemies of the state, a view that comes out clearly in Joe’s comments and attitude. The concentrate, Panopticon and other systems of incarceration are also open to considerable abuse by prison authorities. These are best exemplified by the forms of abuse sanctioned by Arpaio, which include extreme torture, death of inmates, use of pepper spray, restraint chairs and stun guns. Other abuses include extreme overcrowding, physical violence, severe overcrowding and severely hot temperatures in cells. Sheriff Arpaio’s system is emblematic of past approaches in all the above systems that try to prevent and punish crime without any solid evidence that the strategies worked. Even shockingly, he commissions a study to determine if the strategies were effective, then dismisses evidence that they were ineffective. While touring the tent city, he comes across a prostitution convict who had been arrested thirty times and a drug offender that should have been in rehabilitation, but is instead sent to the concentration camp and chain gang, but still, he ignores such evidence. Not even Arpaio’s obsession with cutting costs appears to be effective. For instance, the County made a $2.5 million settled for a wrongful death. According to Davidson (2013), the County spent upwards of $13 million in compensation for torture and/or wrongful deaths of prisoners between 1998 and 2010.
Question Two
2.1 Sheriff Arpaio is not only celebrated in Arizona for his tough stance on crime, but he has also been re-elected four times. He even draws support from right wing groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis (Lemons, 2013). The jail practices in the County reflect the population’s tough stance against crime, and willingness to use tough measures to combat the same. Despite the clear evidence of cruel punishments and use of extreme torture, the sheriff’s support remains considerable. The public featured in the video The Toughest Sheriff In America broadly support Arpaio’s strategies and stance with regard to crime. Specifically, some believed that jail is meant to be tough and that tough conditions would deter offenders. A barber argues that his ways serve to re-orient the inmates away from their criminal ways. The fact that the sheriff is serving a fifth term, which he comfortably won in a direct election, and further that he even believes himself to be popular enough to be governor, represents a vote of approval in his methods. This is further evidenced in the fact that Janet Napolitano was not only forced to shelve cases against Arpaio, but also had to rely on the sheriff’s endorsement to win a gubernatorial election.
2.2 Arpaio’s support represents a hostile attitude by society towards offenders, who are viewed as enemies and misguided perception that his methods work. Deterioration of jail conditions (including prison overcrowding, torture and cruel punishment, solitary confinement and chain gangs) is evident across many countries in the world. Phoenix and Arizona’s negative attitude towards offenders is glaring. Illegal immigrants, who are hardworking, are incarcerated subjected to cruel punishment and/or deported. The geographical location of Arizona as a transit point and destination of Mexican immigrants, coupled by the rising crimes rates due to the ineffectiveness of the criminal justice system does shape the attitudes of the population.
Illegal immigration and high crime rates are important election issues across America. However, immigration is more emphasized to Arizona, Texas and border states, compared to other states in the country.
2.3 The of extreme torture practices including torturing inmates to death, use of stun guns, paper sprays, temporary and unbearably hot tent cities, lock downs and denial of access to medication are easily among the most outstanding practices (Lemons, 2012). These practices not only result in death or physical injury (including death), but crucially, they strip inmates of dignity and sense of self-worth. Physical and psychological torture breaks prisoners. It renders prisons into places where inmates are ruined instead of being rehabilitated. The consequence of these acts goes further beyond harming inmates and their families, but also has implications on crime prevention. The ineffectiveness of the system due to such practices is to blame, not least because the system ignores empirical evidence that such practices are ineffective.
2.4 There is no reason to believe that these practices will not expand. The fact that sheriff Arpaio has been re-elected multiple times and further that the County and State leadership are terrified of standing up to him speaks of the implicit support for his abuses. The population’s support has even allowed Joe the audacity to resist court orders to improve prison populations. However, Arpaio will not last forever, and the fact that there are opposing candidates against him, coupled by the rising opposition against him, presents a refreshing a ray of hope.
References
Prisons and Executions—the U.S. Model. (2001). Monthly Review Volume 53, Issue 03, http://monthlyreview.org/2001/07/01/prisons-and-executions-the-u-s-model/.
Davidson, J. (2013, Sept 27). ‘America’s Toughest Sheriff’ Takes Meat off Jail Menu. Retrieved Oct 25, 2014, from http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/09/27/americas-toughest-sheriff-takes-meat-off-jail-menu/
Finnegan, W. (2009, July 20). Sheriff Joe.(Arizonasheriff Joe Arpaio). The New Yorker, p. 42.
Lemons, S. (2012, May 25). Sheriff Joe Sure Ain't a Conservative, and Here's Why. Retrieved Oct 25, 2014, from http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2012-10-25/news/sheriff-joe-sure-ain-t-a-conservative-and-here-s-why/
Lemons, S. (2013, July 25). Arpaio Fires Up Hispanic-Hunting Raids, Going After the Smallest Fish He Can Find. Retrieved Oct 25, 2014, from http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2013-07-25/news/arpaio-fires-up-hispanic-hunting-raids-going-after-the-smallest-fish-he-can-find/
Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. (2014). Jail Information. Retrieved Oct 25, 2014, from http://www.mcso.org/
O'Toole, S. (2006). The History of Australian Corrections. Sydney: UNSW Press.
Ozimek, N. A. (1997). NOTE: REINSTITUTION OF THE CHAIN GANG: A HISTORICAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS. The Boston University Public Interest Law Journal 6 B.U. Pub. Int. L.J. 753.
The Toughest Sheriff In America . (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utOjv2oOIb0
