Maricopa County, Arizona is spending approximately $18 million dollars a year on stray animals, like cats and dogs. Sheriff Joe Arpaio offered to take the department over and the county supervisors said okay.
The animal shelters are now 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 would like to adopt an animal. He has literally taken stray dogs off the street, given them to the care of prisoners and had them placed in dog shows.
His budget for the entire department is now under $3 million. One couple adopted a Weimaraner from Maricopa County Shelter two years ago. He was neutered, had all current shots, in great health and even had a microchip inserted the day they got them. Cost, $78.
The prisoners get the benefit of about 28 cents an hour for working, but most would work for free, just to be out of their cells for a day.
Most of his budget is for utilities, building maintenance, etc. He pays the prisoners out of fees collected for adopted animals. Would that the rest of the country take a look at the way Sheriff Joe runs his 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-size hog farm, which provides meat and fertilizer. It fertilizes the Christmas tree nursery, where prisoners work and sell Christmas trees for $6 and $8.
He was reelected last year with 83 percent 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 hot-line phone number painted on it, so you can call and report suspected illegal aliens.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement wasn’t doing enough in his eyes, so he has trained 40 deputies specifically to enforce immigration laws, started up his hot-line, and bought four new buses just for hauling folks back to the border.
Some will recall first reading about Sheriff Joe when he issued pink underclothes to male prisoners. Prisoners didn’t give them to visitors like they did the white ones. ‘He took away cable tv until he found out there was a federal court order that required cable tv for jails. So, he hooked up the cable tv, and only let in the Disney Channel and the Weather Channel.
He bought Newt Gingrich’s lecture series on videotape that he pipes into the jail. He also stopped smoking and porno magazines in the jail, took away their weights and cut off all but ‘G? movies.
He started a chain gang for men, then one for women so he wouldn’t be sued for discrimination.
Maybe Sheriff Joe can get away with these innovations because Arizona is one of those get tough, western states, as opposed to a wimpy western state like California.
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I like this one: A real Christian is a person who can give his parrot to the town gossip.
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How about a limerick to close out the week?
A cute little babe from St. Paul
Wore a newspaper dress to a ball;
But her dress caught on fire
And burned her entire
Front page, sporting section and all.