Arguably the “world’s toughest sheriff,” Maricopa County (Phoenix) Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio continues to draw heavy fire for his strong statements, stands, and tactics against illegal immigration.

After a long career in law and drug enforcement, Arpaio eventually advanced to the position of head of the Arizona DEA. In 1992, he campaigned successfully for the office of Maricopa County Sheriff, and was re-elected by double-digit margins for four additional four-year terms. 

He instituted a number of innovative programs that have been effective in preventing or reducing crime, including bicycle registration; block watches; child ID; “Operation Identification”; “Operation Notification”; “Hard Knocks High,” which gives credits for a high school diploma; ALPHA, a highly successful anti-substance abuse “Project Lifeline”; and an annual summer camp for kids.

His office’s website (mcso.org) hosts “Jail Cam,” an internet webcast which shows arrestees being brought in, handcuffed, fingerprinted, booked, and then taken to holding cells. The site receives millions of hits every day. 

He has drawn national attention for three primary reasons: Tent City, Voluntary Chain Gangs, and Illegal Immigration enforcement. 

Tent City is an extension of the Maricopa County Jail, which presently holds approximately 1,200 of the 10,000 prisoners incarcerated there. In summer, temperatures can reach well in excess of 100 degrees in the shade, making the upper bunks particularly uncomfortable for the inmates. When inmates complained, Arpaio said, “It’s 120 degrees in Iraq and the soldiers are living in tents, have to wear full body armor, and they didn’t commit any crimes, so shut your mouths.”

Because inmates stole the white prison boxer shorts, Arpaio ordered them to wear pink shorts instead. This was expanded to include pink handcuffs when the regular issue cuffs also began to disappear. 

In addition, the inmates wear black-and-white prison stripes, are fed two meals a day (to save money), no longer have access to pornographic magazines such as Playboy, and their TV channels are limited to The Disney Channel and C-SPAN. 

When asked about Tent City by Nightline, he responded, “Why do you say rehabilitation? Why don’t [you] use the word punishment anymore? I’ll use it. You do something wrong, you lose your privileges, and you’re punished for it.  So I’m not afraid to say punishment.” 

Arpaio offers no apologies about the inmate treatment, saying that he makes prisoners’ jail time so painful that they never want to come back. 

Volunteer Chain Gangs were instituted during Arcaro’s first term as a way to provide essentially free services to save taxpayer monies by cleaning streets, painting over graffiti, and burying the indigent in the county cemetery. 

In addition, Arpaio has expanded the county sheriff’s posse to more than 3,000 volunteers who not only assist with regular police duties, but also by rounding up deadbeat parents, fighting prostitution, patrolling malls during holidays, and investigating animal cruelty complaints. 

But the one area where Arpaio has been most successful, and for which he has drawn the most hostile fire, is illegal immigration. 

When Arizona passed a state law in 2005 making smuggling illegal aliens across the border a felony, Arpaio instructed his deputies and posse to arrest illegal aliens. 

His strategy was elegant simplicity itself: “We use minor misdemeanors to catch dope dealers, seize drugs, and catch DUIs," he said on Nightline. Regarding illegal immigration, Arpaio told said: "That’s a high interest of the country right now. And this county is putting resources towards that. I have $1.6 million from the state just to do that.”

Arpaio also noted on Nightline: "We reward people for illegally coming into this country, reward them with jobs.... You do know if you go into the ER many people [are] here illegally where U.S. citizens have to wait in the back of the line and they get angry about this.” 

Sheriff Arpaio told the Washington Times: "My message is clear: if you come here and I catch you, you’re going straight to jail.... I’m not going to turn these people over to federal authorities so they can have a free ride back to Mexico. I’ll give them a free ride to my jail.” 

That's enough to draw the ire of such organizations as the ACLU, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and Amnesty International. 

Time magazine recently asked if Arpaio was “an effective law-enforcement officer or…a flagrant human-rights violator.” Time said that “although Arpaio’s severe tactics are popular among Arizonans, his deputies have attracted widespread criticism in their pursuit of illegal immigrants for harassment and the racial profiling of Latinos.” 

The New York Times Editorial Writers blog considers Arpaio “armed and dangerous. He is a public menace with a long and well-documented trail of inmate abuses, unjustified arrests, racial profiling, brutal and inept policing and wasteful spending.” 

Even the Goldwater Institute has drawn a bead on Arpiao with its claim that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is not “the leader in establishing the standards for providing professional quality law enforcement.” 

Despite the attacks, however, Arpaio remains highly effective in upholding and enforcing the law, as the latest ABC Nightline show reveals. The Nightline team went along with one of Arpaio’s deputies on Interstate 17, and pulled over a suspicious vehicle. The result: 18 illegal immigrants crammed into the vehicle.

Nightline concluded: “There’s no time for sentiment. The night’s bounty — 16 men and 2 women — were cuffed and placed in a prison truck. They made it to America, but their journey has come to an abrupt halt.”

Thanks to Joe Arpiao, the “world’s toughest sheriff.”

Photo of Sheriff Joe Arpaio: AP Images

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We need joe, Lowly rated comment [Show]

Compassion said:

Racists Suck.... Whatever happened to being nice to your neighbors, both you and you Sheriff are nothing but Racist bigoted Jerks and would have been a perfect fit in Nazi Germany.

December 16, 2009

Joe Doing a GREAT Job !, Lowly rated comment [Show]

Will Grigg said:

Arpaio the Authoritarian Thug When did TNA become a press agency for the Mussolini of Maricopa County? Arpaio is a greasy political hack who has cost his county millions in dollars from legal settlements, most of which involve people dying needlessly in his jail.In his unabashed pursuit of self-promotion, Arpaio has let 70,000 warrants go unenforced -- warrants involving real crimes against persons and property. If Arpaio's county is typical of the New America TNA seeks to create, freedom has already perished.

December 16, 2009 | url

Bryan Morton said:

People need to do a little homework. Joe Arpiao and his gang of miscreants has cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars and had bilked the system for even more. Their history of violence against innocents is easily researchable on line. Their type of "law" enforcement is exactly what the John Birch Society and The New American once fought. If TNA can, in good conscience, endorse this kind of person, then totalitarianism has won and we really are living in Der Neue Amerikaner.

December 16, 2009 | url

TippyCanoe said:

What happened here? Wow, surprising... TNA has stooped to new lows. This guy is a totalitarian statist and you confuse it with "punishment".

December 16, 2009

Gene Berkman said:

Disappointed in New American I thought that The New American was committed to limited government and individual freedom. Joe Arpaio is a thug with total contempt for the constitutional rights of Americans and those resident in this country. Recently one of Arpaio's deputy thugs arrested a Latina who was 9 months pregnant, and would not take off the shackles even as the woman devilered her baby. Really, if you are looking for a Sheriff that respects the Constitution, Richard Mack is your guy, not Joe Arpaio.

December 16, 2009 | url

Will Grigg said:

RIchard Mack vs. Arpaio I recently had the pleasure of sharing the stage with Sheriff Mack at an event in California. During the ride to the airport I asked him about "Sheriff Joe." "Well, Joe's a friend of mine, but he's not a constitutionalist," Mack replied after a measured pause. "A lot of conservatives like and support him, but they need to understand that about him." Sheriff Mack is indeed a much worthier model of a constitutional "peace officer" than the feculent thug ruling Maricopa County, Arizona.

December 16, 2009 | url

..., Lowly rated comment [Show]

zman said:

We need good sheriffs, but Joe Arpaio is not one of them We need good, tough people at the local level in law enforcement, but Joe Arpaio is not it. He's a grandstanding publicity seeker who discovered a few years ago that he can get a lot of press, both good and bad, from his outrageous antics. Joe runs a corrupt department. Do a search for the video of one of his deputies, Adam Stoddard, brazenly stealing a document from a defense attorney in the middle of a court session. It is unbelievable. And Joe is backing the unrepentant Stoddard every step of the way.

December 16, 2009

..., Lowly rated comment [Show]

Don't go there, Lowly rated comment [Show]

..., Lowly rated comment [Show]

Will Grigg said:

TNA's selective reporting The recycled Arpaio press release above mentioned the recent "Nightline" segment on the sheriff. It omits mention of the fact that Arpaio admitted to paying out $30 million in legal settlements as a result of lawless abuse -- including multiple deaths -- committed by his minions. TNA mentions Arpaio's volunteer "posse" but conceals the fact that during a 2003 prostitution "sting" posse members actually disrobed and engaged in intimate behavior with the hookers they arrested. So inmates don't have porn, but posse members can par-tay in the name of "developing the case." This isn't just superficial "reporting"; it's journalistic malpractice.

December 17, 2009 | url

TippyCanoe said:

Above the law? Joel, no one is taking the criminals' side. No one commenting is "pro-criminal". Just because you wear a badge doesn't give you the right to abuse people and circumvent the law. That is the issue here. This form of "retribution" and attitude of being "above the law" is way out of bounds.

December 17, 2009

Great Work Joe, Lowly rated comment [Show]

Missplaced "beef", Lowly rated comment [Show]

If Only said:

Now... ...If only we could arrange a meeting somewhere out in AZ between Sherrif Joe and that undocumented resident currently residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue...

December 17, 2009

Will Grigg said:

Some better sources on Arpaio Nightline, Pt. II: http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=9337890 Goldwater Institute (hardly a pinko-commie outfit) on Arpaio's dismal record where actual law enforcement is concerned: http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/Common/Img/Mission Unaccomplished.pdf http://ktar.com/?nid=6&sid=1165422 Arpaio's "posse" blows prostitution sting: http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/?sty=23162 Arpaio's jails lose accredited status: http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2009/01/sheriff_lawbreaker_joe_arpaios.php Now that I've done TNA's research for them, might they be troubled to commit some actual JOURNALISM about Arpaio?

December 17, 2009 | url

J.E. Andreasen said:

Shurf Joe; up close & personal I have been a resident of Maricopa County since 1959, and a freedom activist since 1974. I have taken college instruction under MCSO senior management personnel. I have had superb personal assistance from MCSO officials that later were viciously destroyed precisely for their decency and honor. Simply put, Joe Arpaio is the worst nightmare for those ancestors who established the office of Sheriff as the top law enforcement official in a given county. He has used his experience in federal law enforcement to create a private army, answerable to no one, egged on by every Nativist drone and "C-minus" LEO butt-licker in metropolitan Phoenix. What these sub-genius folks don't yet realize is that he considers EVERY PERSON within his reach to be a "pre-arrested" criminal. His hubris is absolutely without limit, and is only matched by his contempt for human liberty and the constraints of a Constitutional Republic. None are safe from his gaze; not even his praetorian guard. J. E. Andreasen

December 18, 2009

David S said:

Mack vs Arpaio I'm pleased to read Sheriff Mack's critical comments on Arpaio, as related by Will above. When I first read the TNA's recent reviewhttp://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/constitution/1976-can-the-county-sheriff-save-the-constitution of Mack's book, I went to Mack's website http://www.sheriffmack.com/ to learn more. Sadly, right on the front page was an endorsement from Arpaio. That was on Oct 6th. But when I checked today, I see that the endorsement is no longer there.

December 19, 2009

Emperor Palpatine said:

As Lord of the Sith... As Emperor and Lord of the Sith, I thank TNA's excellent support of my apprentice, Sherrif Arpaio. The dark side of the force runs strong in him, and TNA's allegiance will be rewarded with a full complement of shiny new StormTrooper uniforms. *Cackles*

January 05, 2010 | url

tp said:

Sheriff Joe IS a joke! You cannot compare Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Saddam Hussein with Sheriff Joe. They were despotic dictators with little regard for human life or rule of law..OH wait!. Sheriff Joe IS NOT that bad, but he IS NOT a good sheriff and would have been fired long ago had his position have been appointed instead of elected. Sheriff Joe depends on the "law n'odor" rednecks, the racist anti-immigrant "conservative" voters who have re-elected him. But what is undeniable is that Sherrif Joe had brought immense scrutiny from the Federal Government AND he has cost the County of Maricopa, and the State of Arizona, MILLIONS of dollars in legal settlements and lawyer fees. For a county just hanging on fiscally and a State that is 3 BILLION in debt, Sheriff Joe and his merry band of thugs is an expense we taxpayers in Arizona cannot afford. I hope he does run for Governor of Arizona, after all we have impeached and sent to jail two governors, three's a charm.

January 10, 2010