good government report

[can't sit still]

It's so amazingly rare when GOV does something that actually makes sense or is logical. Here's a rare example.

Maricopa County was spending approx. $18 million dollars a year on stray
animals, like cats and dogs. Sheriff Joe offered to take the department
over, and the County Supervisors said okay.
The animal shelters are now all staffed and operated by prisoners. They
feed and care for the strays. Every animal in his care is taken out and
walked twice daily. He now has prisoners who are experts in animal
nutrition and behavior. They give great classes for anyone who'd like
to adopt an animal. He has literally taken stray dogs off the street,
given them to the care of prisoners, and had them place in dog shows.
The best part? His budget for the entire department is now under $3
million.
Teresa and I adopted a Weimaraner from a Maricopa County shelter two
years ago. He was neutered, and current on all shots, in great health,
and even had a microchip inserted the day we got him. Cost us $78.
The prisoners get the benefit of about $0.28 an hour for working, but
most would work for free, just to be out of their cells for the day.
Most of his budget is for utilities, building maintenance, etc. He pays
the prisoners out of the fees collected for adopted animals.
I have long wondered when the rest of the country would take a look at
the way he runs the jail system, and copy some of his ideas. He has a
huge farm, donated to the county years ago, where inmates can work, and
they grow most of their own fresh vegetables and food, doing all the
work and harvesting by hand. He has a pretty good sized hog farm, which
provides meat, and fertilizer. It fertilizes the Christmas tree
nursery, where prisoners work, and you can buy a living Christmas tree
for $6 - $8 for the Holidays, and plant it later. We have six trees in
our yard from the Prison.
Yup, he was reelected last year with 83% of the vote.
Now he's in trouble with the ACLU again. He painted all his buses and
vehicles with a mural, that has a special hotline phone number painted
on it, where you can call and report suspected illegal aliens.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement wasn't doing enough in his eyes, so
he had 40 deputies trained specifically for enforcing immigration laws,
started up his hotline, and bought 4 new buses just for hauling folks
back to the border. He's kind of a 'Git-R Dun' kind of Sheriff.

[mdmf007]

He may save money on the front end but many of his programs have cost millions in litigation and jury awards and settlements.

Many of the county commisioners have asked the citizens to stop electing him. He saves 15 million with the animal shelters, but costs more in litigation, defense, and settlements overall.

It is also not legal for prisoners to do much of this work. What is legal in AZ, may not work in other places. In Washington it is spelled out exactly what an inmate may and may not do in the form of work. Firefighting is in and so is forestry work.

This is just the information I have found online, and it could be total crap.

so who knows for real.

later

[can't sit still]

007, I'm always open to a more complete picture of a situation. I DO believe that the law should allow/force prisoners to farm for their own food. The extreme cost of maintaining prisoners is a big part of the "catch and release" system at overcrowded prisons.
Shoot, make the prisoners construct new prisons. That teaches them valuable trades. That's a whole lot better than "burglary 101". I've visited a couple of prisons. There's nothing that rots the mind so fast as being and feeling totally useless. Caring for animals, creating with one's hands,,, these are all good programs.
As far as litigation costs, I would have to see hard numbers from the county budget. I believe that the ACLU gave up on him a long time ago. I believe that if a person decides to prey on society then that person loses most of the priveleges and protections afforded by that society. With the coddling in our system, ricidivism is a guarantee.
Look at Milken, ruined thousands of people,,,,did <2> years,,, came out with <53> million $. SCREW him,,, take it all. The punishment should be made proportional to the damage inflicted by the crime.

[CapSmashy]

I have been a long time fan of Sheriff Joe. The man is a model for how a law enforcement agency should be run.

And the ACLU has lost a lot more than they have won against him.

[Valkyrie]

Sort of reminds me a little of the story behind Shawshank Redemption, one of my favorite movies...

I'm not saying the guy is crooked, but when you start taking the "git 'er done" too seriously, you step on a lot of people's toes.

For example, the Christmas tree project? Most places I've lived, various charity organizations sell Christmas trees as fund raisers. Now you have prisoners competing with the local charities or businesses to "save" people money. It can easily turn into a "Wal-Mart" situation where you see local businessmen put out of business by the cheap labor of prisoners (this was some of the backstory behind the payoffs in above movie).

I've spent a lot of time thinking this having spent more time than I'd like in Leavenworth Kansas. (On the outside, thank you very much) where they have tons of prison industries, mostly on the fort, although the state and fed prisons also ran a few. They did a lot of lawn mowing and stuff like that. (If you think the military prison is gonna let prisoner's just sit and rot, I don't think you really understand the military. )

The animal shelter business is interesting. They're not competing with local businesses, but rather providing a county service that would otherwise be provided by county employees. I think this is an interesting program.