Michael Elliott

Bob,

It's nice to know I'm not the only one living in a state with cartoonish politics. 

Bob Clark

There are more than a few, I'm afraid. Good to hear from you, Mike 

Craig Casebeer

Hey Mike, I hear Sheriff Joe is down in the polls. There may be hope for Ariz yet. 

Tom "Skip" Johnson

The latest approval rating for Kansas' Governor, Sam Brownback, is 15% BUT he's still in office.  Good luck in Arizona.

Linda Wonn (Carpenter)

Actually Sheriff Joe has some very good ideas. He took over the pitbulls for Parolees and made it work..His programs have kept thousands of animals from being euthanized in the state of Arizona.. He just doesn't happen to believe that the incarcerated should live in luxury and I for one agree with him, though he encourages hismodel prisoners to take college lasses. I know as I have had several in my Humanities through the Arts classes. And talk about cartoonish states, don't think you can do better or worse (depending upon your scale) than California, forever the state of fruits and nuts. Can't beat the weather though! :)

Greg Cook

If Zonies depose sheriff Joe wonder what they will do with the pink underwear and coveralls?

Mitch Wise

Love your post Linda,  criminals should not be treated so well in jail.  It is JAIL, period.  Not a vacation.

Greg Cook

Had a scary moment on a flight on our vacation:

After boarding and taking off for a long flight over the ocean, the speaker comes on with an important message for passengers.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, we are introducing you today to the latest and newest aviation advancement in history. This plane is flying without a pilot or co-pilot. It is controlled by way of radio from the ground.

"Sit back and relax and enjoy your flight. Be assured that absolutely nothing can go wrong... absolutely nothing can go wrong... absolutely nothing can go wrong... absolutely nothing can go wrong..."  You're flying Autobot airlines."

Richard Maurer

Not sure, but Linda's response about Sheriff Joe may have had an element of being facetious.  Linda's suggestion that she had a number of such students in her humanities class is possibly a clue that her post is a bit over the top.  

In any case, Sheriff's Joe's idea of a reasonable jail is a tent city in the Arizona desert.  Temperatures in the area reach into the 130s, and in the tents, the temps go into the 140s.  He has been running this wonderful resort for more than 20 years.  Definitely not luxurious.  Many of the inmates have been arrested for some relatively low level crime.  But many haven't even been convicted. There is a racial profiling issue.  Many of the prisoners are Hispanics who are simply guilty of crossing the US border to try to get back together with family members.  It has been reported that between 2003 and 2007, Maricopa County, Arizona taxpayers had to pay $30 million in liability claims for mistreatment of inmates in sheriff Joes's jails.

 Immigration is a huge and important issue for this and so many countries and probably not the best topic to bring Savanna alumni together.  But I have to say that it seems to me that everybody and especially the disadvantaged should be treated with a little more dignity and respect than they get from Sheriff Joe.

Will Bailey

I have never lived in Arizona, New Mexico or Texas. I imagine for those who do live there the realitiy of illegal immigration is quite a bit different than those of us who don't live there. It's easy from a distance to say what should be done. The Sheriff is doing his job as he believes it should be done. The people have the right to remove him. Recitivism rates should tell the tale of whether or not his tactics are working. What are those?

Phil Kessler

Sheriff Joe's job is to keep his community safe and his method has proven effective.  The recividism rate for his inmates is the lowest of any prison in the US and people know that they should not break the law in his territory. That includes illegals entering Maricopa County. Our soldiers serving in the Middle East live in tents in temperatures reaching 140 degrees and no one complains about them being treated inhumanely. If people don't want to live in Sheriff Joe's prison they have a choice.  Our soldiers don't.

Jerry Labuda

Great comment Phil.

Susan Brooks (Storm)

Thank you Richard Maurer for your thoughtful and, in my opinion, accurate response. As a member of the law enforcement community for the past 25 years, I have learned, through the research, that harsh treatment and punishment do not reduce recidivism.  It would be easy to change behavior if they did. Sheriff Joe needs to study the research! 

Linda Wonn (Carpenter)

Richard, I am serious about having those students in my Humanities telecourse, Introduction to the Arts. Last semester I had 348 incarcerated students from prisons all over the United States and several were from Arizona. Apparently there is some law on the books that if you were ever incarcerated in the state of California, you have the right to take a comminity college course here in California, and Coastline seems to have corenred the market on recruiting incarcerated students. Joe's tent cities are indeed diametricaly opposed to  the  luxurious accomodations offered at the Men's Colony in San Luis Obsibo but I truly believe people think twice before they break the law under his watch. And Joe does encourage his model prisoners to take college classes.

 Statistics show, as I am sure that Susan would agree, prisoners who earn an A.A. degree or a speicalized certificate behind bars have a much greater chance of securing and keeping employment once they are released. Joe's animal shelter, MASH,  is the only one of its kind in the U.S. MASH provides inmates an "opportunity to improve responsibility and nurturing skills, gain vocational skills in the pet industry and help train and address the inmates’ needs in areas of personal growth, parenting, cognitive restructuring, behavior modification, job readiness and community linkages." Graduates from this program have found success in the animal care industry.

Phil, you make an excellent point. God bless our soldiers and bring them home safely.

Richard Maurer

It is obvious that there are differing opinions about incarceration and the criminal justice system.  Sadly the US has one of the highest incarceration rates of any country.  Prisons cost taxpayers a lot of money.  Has this expenditure bought us better public safey?  I suspect that most people would agree that there are some truly dangerous individuals and the public needs to be protected by locking up this group.  However, is the toughest, most unpleasant punishment the best way to prevent future crime from non-violent offenders?  It seems clear that the idea of tough punishment sells with the public.  It is part of the reason that Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been re-elected for more than 20 years.  However, there is evidence that Sheriff Joe's tough punishment programs have not made a big impact on recidivism.  In 1998, Sheriff Arpaio initiated a study by Arizona State University criminal justice professor, Marie L. Griffin.  The study found that  there was no significant change in recidivism in Maricopa County, AZ when comparing prisoners released in 1989–1990 under the programs of the previous sheriff verus those released in 1994-1995 under the programs of Sheriff Joe.   A substantial fraction of prison inmates have mental illness or addiction problems.  These issue are often either not addressed or poorly addressed by prison programs.  Similarly communities often have very limited resources to treat addiction and mental illness.  In the absence of adequately treating these underlying problems, recidivism is quite likely.  If  you are interested in this topic, a quick Google search can lead to a number of studies that have looked at lots of aspects of the effectiveness of the prison system.

Mitch Wise

Wow,  what a diverse group of adults we have grown into.  I for one side with Linda and Phil, but realize that Richard has some good points as well.  Janet taught school at Salk School in Anaheim, next to Magnolia, just down Gilbert from Savanna.  The crime rate and dangerous population there required the police to make sure none of the teachers were on campas past 5 PM in the winter wth the sun down and the campus dark.  They simply told the staff, we do not have enought cops to protect you if you stay.  The school was continually tagged, over the years she taught either first grade or kindergarten.  Quite often she had a young student bragging that his "dad, Brother, uncle" was in jail or that they  had a gun on them all the time.

Our population has changed dramatically in the past 50 years.  The jails are full or repeat offenders.  Those under Sherrif Joe may or may not be repeat criminals, I do not know.  But I do know AZ and the number of illegal aliens there is tremendous, very similar to S. CA.   

I do believe that Jail is Jail.  If you are in there, you have done something bad, and should not be treated better there than you were on the outside.  As to cost, it is the shere numbers of criminals we now house.  Are we to take them to court and immediately release to continue the activities that placed them in prison to begin with. 

I do not have the answers.  But I realize that this is a serious threat to our society.  One of our neighbors in La Quinta happened to be a guard at the prison out in the desert just before leaving CA on Highway 10.  His stories would chill your bones.  I am not cerain if any of these convicts will ever be safe to return to the general population regardless of treatment in prison.  

John Vash

I have no answer to the topic of Sheriff Joe.  I do know that once released, felons have a very hard time finding employment, at even the lowest level.  Education, while in prison, I'm sure would help.  Employers who just throw a felons job application in the trash when they see the box that asks "have you ever been guilty of a felony" should at least give that person the courtesy of an honest interview.  As for prison overpopulation one thing I think would help is to not to incarcerate anyone suffering from mental illness.  Addicts should be weaned off their habit & educated befor being incarcerated for their crime.  That is if their crime was not for just being loaded.  Going COLD TURKEY while imprisoned does not work.  There are drugs in jail.

This will be my last post on this topic.  I think that this site should be about what we are doing now or rememberances of our past.  To all my classmates, I hope your enjoying life & if your not, I hope your working on a solution.  As we all have more yesterdays than tomorrows, enjoy the day you've been given to the best of your abilities.  Aloha.

Pat Klingensmith (Radoccia)

Good Sunday afternoon!

I'm usually more a reader of the posts than a poster but having lived in AZ for 32 years and having been a supporter of a lot of Joe's programs, tent city and peanut butter sandwiches didn't seem so bad even the volunteer chain gangs but sometimes it seems like the "do badders" wear their time in tent city as a badge earned in the criminal world.  In the real world a lot of them don't live in homes and if they do don't have a/c so not sure just how bad tent city is for them, for us it would be horrible, only thing they really hate is they don't have their cell phones.  Over the years I have become less enthralled with Joe's activities, for one making life difficult for any government types that disagree with him and then they sue him, as of this last week the news was saying we tax payers have paid over $40 million to keep Joe on the right side of the bars and it's not over yet.  When he started pulling people over just because of their skin color was the last straw.  My knee jerk response is hell yes do racial profiling to protect innocent people but in reality I know that's not the answer and it's just not nice.  

On top of everything the Cardinals just lost, badly, dang.  

Richard Maurer

I agree with John Vash, that the topic of Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the whole criminal justice system is best left to other forums.  Mea culpa, I apologize as I was the one who inappropriately led this discussion into a more controversial/political direction.  Of course, the topic is important, but this isn't the place.   I should have known better, my mistake.  This is a place for for Savanna '65 alumni to connect and share.  I very much value that opportunity and have enjoyed learning a little bit about many of my high school colleagues.  I don't want to have that experience ruined by controversial topics. So I hope we can move on and continue to enjoy connecting about many other topics.  

Mitch Wise

I agree with all the above, more SHS Class of 65 stuff.   So on that note, Jan's sister and husband just visited us over here in France.  A few Days in Paris, wonderful time, then they came to Bordeaux for another 5 days.  It was really good to see the sisters together.  Already looking forward to hour trip back to CA next year.

GREG,   we need more input.  

Greg Cook

And on a lighter note:

Gordon Reed

Thanks for returning with some humor. The Joe Arpaio stuff was getting into an area that I will not engage in. Politics is never a good subject unless you are half blitzed on a Saturday night.

Linda Marks (Bird)

Linda Wonn (Carpenter)

Thanks for the humor, Greg! And Linda have a wonderful time in Kauai. Can't wait to see your pictures!

Greg Cook

My thoughts exactly Gordon