General Chat

Thanks to Eeyore for the apology in the thread on the chat board. Still -- it was worth having it here, if only as a warning of the dangers of reading spam email!

http://justdreadful.com/?p=270

quote

Imagine you are the mother of a mentally handicapped thirty-three-year-old-man. Your son functions on the level of a twelve-year-old boy. His disability often causes him to act erratically, but you still hope that one day, he can lead a normal life. One night in August, 2001, he is arrested on a misdemeanor loitering charge when he begins acting strangely in a convenience store.

When officers arrive to arrest him, he is clinging to the store’s coffee machine and won’t let go. Four officers forcibly remove him from the store, handcuff him, and throw him to the ground to be hogtied. The force seems excessive, since your son is disabled and only weighs about a hundred and thirty pounds.

A few minutes later, his limbs bound behind his tiny frame, officers load him into the squad car to take him away. Before they pull away, your son asks you, like a little kid, “Mom, will you ride in the car with me?”

“I can’t,” you tell him, “the police won’t let me.”

You figure that the police will probably hold your son overnight, and you head home to get some rest.

Two hours later, your son is dead.
When Charles Agster arrives at Madison Street Jail, he is confused, as is typical of his condition. He tries to wriggle underneath a bench, and although he is still hogtied, three or more officers and a sheriff’s deputy jump on him, punch him, and knee him in the side.

One officer grips his face, pressing upward toward his chin. Although he is now unresponsive, the officers drag him, face down, into the Intake area and strap him into a restraint chair. They place a spit-hood over his head, encasing him in darkness. Minutes later, he stops breathing. The original autopsy lists “positional asphyxia due to restraint” as his cause of death.

Videotape of the incident shows guards trying to resuscitate Agster, but he’s already brain dead. A 2002 Amnesty International report expresses concern “that the degree of force used against Agster was grossly disproportionate to any threat posed by him.”

Forty-year-old Brian Crenshaw was serving a short sentence for shoplifting. Although Crenshaw had been in and out of jail for years and had a drug problem, he had never been accused of a violent crime. He was also legally blind. After an altercation with officers, Crenshaw reported injuries to jail medical personnel. His eye and nose were sutured, and his vitals were taken. Crenshaw stated that he was pushed to the wall, punched and kicked by officers. Apparently, the struggle ensued when Crenshaw refused to show his ID in a lunch line. Due to the altercation, Crenshaw was placed in lockdown.

For the next six days, nobody entered or left his cell. On March 14, Crenshaw was found unconscious next to his bunk. He had a broken neck, several broken toes, and extensive internal injuries. He was comatose, his intestines had ruptured, and his vertebrae needed to be straightened with a halo. Doctors told Crenshaw’s mother that his internal injuries were so severe they had to surgically open his stomach to relieve swelling. The sheriff’s office asserts that Crenshaw’s struggle with guards did not cause the injuries that led to his death. Despite the severity of Crenshaw’s injuries, the sheriff’s office maintains that these injuries were incurred when he fell from his bunk.

On a CBS 5 program after the incident, interviewer Chris Hayes asks Arpaio, “Is it possible your guards beat Brian Crenshaw to death?

“Is it possible?” Arpaio sneers. After an uncomfortable pause, he continues, “No, they did not, they did not, and if that’s what your critics, or that you’re insinuating we went into that cell block and beat him up and threw him to the floor is ridiculous. We did a thorough investigation on that. The man fell off a bunk.”

Crenshaw’s bunk was 4′2″ high, about a foot shorter than a child’s bunk bed, or as Chris Hayes pointed out in his investigation, a little taller than a desk.

You don’t have to be a softy or an advocate of prisoners’ rights to become outraged at reports like these.

end quote

A major concern is the security of both staff and inmates in the tent areas. There are no video cameras in the tents and no sight lights, and if the flaps of the tents are down guards are unable to see into or through the tents, putting them into a potentially hazardous situation if they need to go in to check or respond to an incident. Although MCSO officials told Amnesty International that the tents were "low maintenance", others have said that the In-Tent facilities require greater security than hard cell facilities because of their open design, ready availability of materials that can be used as weapons (including rocks, tent poles, etc) and lack of segregation between violent and non-violent inmates. Amnesty International was told that there were regular bouts of inmate-on-inmate violence in the tents. Yet, alarmingly, the tents have no mechanism to alert prison staff in case of an emergency. Traditional facilities would have some form of alarm system to ensure a swift response. In May 1996 Jeremy Flanders sustained a near-fatal head injury after he was assaulted with a tent stake and thrown from his upper bunk by other inmates; according to a lawsuit filed in the case, guards failed to respond to calls from other inmates to stop the attack.

Amnesty International was disturbed by the deprived conditions under which female juvenile detainees were housed in the First Avenue Jail. At the time of Amnesty International’s visit there were four female children in the jail awaiting trial, aged 16 and 17. They were the only females in that facility and each was confined to a small cell containing just a bunk, toilet and sink, which afforded no privacy and were open to view through the barred cell doors. Amnesty International’s delegates were told that a roof recreation area in the First Avenue Jail had been closed off and that there were currently no outdoor exercise facilities available to any inmate in that jail. It appeared that the female juveniles spent virtually all day in their cells, without any recreational facilities. It was unclear what access, if any, they had to educational programs. The "day room" to which they had access for between one and two hours a day to make phone calls, was just another sparsely equipped small cell in the same narrow and enclosed corridor.

Amnesty International is also concerned that male guards can enter the female inmate area unaccompanied by female staff. Such practice is contrary to international standards which state that men and women should so far as possible be detained in separate institutions, and that no male member of staff shall enter part of an institution set aside for women unless accompanied by a female officer. Amnesty International’s delegates noticed that male guards also worked in the women’s section of the In-Tents jail, without being accompanied by female officers.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AMR51/051/1997/en/dom-AMR510511997en.html

One example is the case of Richard Post, a paraplegic who was admitted to the jail in a wheelchair in March 1996 and alleges that he was placed in an isolation cell for an hour without medical attention, despite asking for a catheter so that he could empty his bladder. He tried to seek attention by banging on the cell window and eventually blocked the toilet in the cell, causing water to seep under the door. Detention officers then removed him from his wheelchair and strapped him into a four-point restraint chair, with his arms pulled down towards his ankles and padlocked, and his legs secured in metal shackles. He claims that straps attached to the chair behind his shoulders were tightened round his chest and neck so that his shoulders were strained backwards, and that one guard placed his foot on the chair and deliberately yanked on the strap as hard as he could. It is further alleged that an officer threatened him with a stun gun while he was immobilized in the chair, while other officers looked on. For the first hour that he was in the chair he was denied the gel cushion he had with him, with the result that severe decubitus ulcers developed around his anus. The manner of his restraint is reported to have caused compression of his spine and nerve damage to his spinal cord and neck, resulting in significant loss of upper body mobility.

Although no use of force report appears to have been made in this case, an internal inquiry was held after his mother complained about his treatment. The sergeant who took the decision to place Richard Post in the restraint chair said that this was done for his own safety as he had been banging on the cell window threatening to harm himself. The inquiry concluded that the chain of events was "predicated by the belligerent and uncooperative behaviour" of Post and that the staff were left with "very little choice in doing what they did". Amnesty International finds it highly questionable that no alternative measures were available to deal with the situation, especially as Mr Post was already incapacitated in a wheelchair. The use of restraints in this case and the manner in which they were applied, including the use of metal shackles in violation of jail policies, appears to have been unnecessarily punitive and to have amounted to cruel and inhuman treatment.


Compassion for the disabled.

In 1996, Jeremy Flanders was attacked by inmates at Tent City who used rebar tent stakes, which were not cemented into the ground. Although these stakes had been used as weapons in a previous riot at the facility, the Sheriff's office chose not to secure them properly. During the trial, the defendant "presented evidence that, among other things, the Sheriff and his deputies had actual knowledge that prisoners used rebar tent stakes and tent poles as weapons and did nothing to prevent it." Furthermore, "the Sheriff admitted knowing about, and in fact intentionally designing, some conditions at Tent City that created a substantial risk of inmate violence." After the attack: "another inmate entered the tent and found Flanders unconscious, gasping for air, and spewing blood out of his mouth, nose and ears. Flanders had been bloodied and beaten so badly that the other inmate initially did not recognize Flanders." Flanders suffered permanent brain damage as a result of the attack.


James Saville was arrested in 1999 for attempting to murder Joe Arpaio. A jury decided that officers from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office had entrapped Saville and found him not guilty.

(a jury of the same people who elected him)



Anybody who wants their son or daughter to get arrested for shoplifting and come home in a box should urge their government to hire Arpaio as a consultant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio

Charles Agster, a mentally handicapped man who was killed in the County Jail shortly after being arrested on misdemeanor loitering charges.

Brian Crenshaw was a blind inmate allegedly beaten into a coma by guards working under Arpaio. Crenshaw suffered injuries that included a perforated intestine and a broken neck. He later died at a local hospital. When asked about the incident, Arpaio insisted, "The man fell off a bunk."

Richard Post was a paraplegic inmate arrested in 1996 for possession of marijuana and criminal trespass. Post was placed in a restraint chair by guards and his neck was broken in the process. The event, caught on video, shows guards smiling and laughing while Post is being injured.

Patrick Colleary was a Catholic Priest accused of molesting an altar boy in Scottsdale, Arizona in 1978. Facing two counts of felony sexual conduct with a minor, he fled to his native Ireland and fought extradition. An Irish High Court judge, Philip O'Sullivan, refused to extradite Colleary back to Arizona, writing in his decision that Arpaio "gloated over the inhumane treatment he dishes out to his inmates" and "appeared to take a chillingly sadistic pleasure in his role as incarcerator. It was the duty of any Irish court to see that no citizen was handed over to such a regime." An Icelandic court in 1997 had come to the same conclusion on a different case.

Sheriff Arpaio has been criticized for allowing his deputies and posse members to engage in sex acts during an undercover prostitution "sting". In November, 2003, Sheriff's deputies arrested over 70 people for prostitution and solicitation. [The details are at the Wiki page, and are left out here because of the nature of this website.]

..........

Furthermore, in a 1998 Arpaio commissioned study, Arizona State University Criminal Justice professor Marie L. Griffin found that Arpaio's policies >>>> did nothing to reduce recidivism in the Maricopa County facilities compared to his predecessor: "there was no significant difference in recidivism observed between those offenders released in 1989-1990 and those released in 1994-1995."

Good on him!! Someone with sense at last!!

Ails x

Awww, somebody kidnap that man and bring him over here! Please! :-))

(Er, not you, Mick lol; I mean Sherriff Joe).
x

Oh - and

{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}} all round of course

xxx mick

Bring back the lash I say!

Bring back the stocks & the ducking stool for witches!

Bring back public executions & drawing & quartering!

What a wonderful Sheriff, wish we had him over here, and yes think No 10 should be sent a copy.

wouldn't mind betting someone has already sent it to No: 10

n

Sheriff Joe was instrumental in the founding of the Maricopa Animal Safe Hospice (MASH), a no kill animal shelter operated by the Sheriff’s office. Inmates care for the rescued animals that have been abused or neglected (as well as temporarily caring for the pets of owners who have checked into domestic violence shelters). The shelter is located in an air-conditioned jail, and the cells have been reconditioned to comfortably house animals. Some critics have said it’s inhumane to put cats and dogs in air-conditioned quarters when inmates don’t have air conditioning. An inmate assigned to care for the animals said “They didn’t do anything wrong, I did.”


In July 2007 Sheriff Joe launched a hot line for calling in tips and info about people living and working in the county illegally. In September 2007 he unveiled “moving billboards” in the form of four trucks and eight inmate passenger vans plastered with the hot line number and signs reading “Do not Illegally enter, and Help Sheriff Joe fight illegal immigration and trafficking.” Critics, including the ACLU, contend that this move constituted racial profiling; Sheriff Joe maintains that his signs say nothing of ethnic backgrounds: “It says illegal immigration and trafficking, I don’t care where they’re from.”


We need to treat all prisoners like Sheriff Joe treats his, and save tax payer money.. I would vote for anyone who pledged to do the type of things Sheriff Joe has accomplished. It's high time we start treating prisioners like prisoners and not children. Sheriff Joe for president, what do you think?

I second that Put him in charge and then lock up all the mamby pamby liberal doogooders (human rights watch, polititians, penal reformers etc add infinitum)

I bet if that Jammi Chukkibutte or whatever her name is, reads about him and all the comments we would all be condemned, and brought before the human rights mob.

Can someone do a Genealogy check on him he must have ancestors that were born here so we can make him in charge of our prison system, even if it is made up.
Anything to make our prisons as a place for punishment not some holiday camp.

Just been reading in the paper that some of these early release criminals don't want to be released, no wonder with the lifestyle they have in prison.

Woow I think he is great, yes wish we had him over here too. I don't think the jails would be so overcrowded either.

Our prisons are better than most prisoners homes, and they don't have to pay for meals or watch the TV etc.

Betty

I wonder how many of his inmates reoffend when they are let out,......not many, I imagine.....

Here Here !!!