Several thousand protest Arpaio's Tent City

Google AP ^ | June 24, 2012

[Red Steel]

PHOENIX (AP) — Several thousand critics of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio gathered outside "Tent City" Saturday night for a rally calling for the closure of the sheriff's complex of canvas jail tents.

Organizers say conditions at "Tent City" complex are inhumane. The sheriff has said he doesn't see any problems with housing inmates in tents and often points out that some members of the U.S. military live in tents.

"We are with you," protesters chanted in both English and Spanish, in hopes that inmates could hear them.

Most protesters held candles and wore yellow T-shirts that read "Standing on the side of love," a slogan of the Unitarian Universalist Association, which was holding its annual convention in Phoenix this weekend.

The rally was the latest effort by the association to promote social justice, association spokesman John Hurley said. The Unitarians organized the rally along with the immigrant rights group Puente Arizona.

[dalereed]

Put up some more tents and issue pink under ware to all of the protesters!!!

[goat granny]

before 1975 (or there about) they weren’t homeless, they were bums. But homeless sounds more PC. panhandlers, hobo’s (travel the trains) and just plane too lazy to work..

[FlingWingFlyer]

It’s 7:00 p.m. and 108 degrees in Phoenix right now. It’s very hot and humid. You can bet these “several thousand” were only outside long enough for their “media” toadies to take a few pictures and then it was back inside for frozen Margaritas.

[daniel1212]

The number issue is how much the money it saves.

As of 2008, the number of incarcerated adults in the United States has reached an all time time, with over 1 in 100 adults (incld. 1 in 9 black men ages 20 to 34) being in jail or prison, costing state governments almost $50 billion a year and the federal government $5 billion more. Approx 91 percent of incarcerated adults are under state or local jurisdiction. the average per prisoner operating cost in 2005 was $23,876. An estimated 1 in every 15 dollars from state general funds was spent on corrections in fiscal year 2007. Pew’s Center on the States study, http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/uploadedFiles/One%20in%20100.pdf

More http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/RevealingStatistics.html#13

[DH]

If they don’t like their tents in Arizona, have them trade places with our solders in “rag head world”. I’ll bet those solders would more than happy to make the trade.

By the way...don’t arm the criminals.

[DH]

I was under the mistaken impression that prison was supposed to be a very bad experience in which the criminal corrected his ways so as not to go back there.

Oh, if forgot...that was way back in 1950.

[sten]

hey Joe... check their papers to make sure they’re all in the US legally

[Marcella]

1. So, if you commit a crime, you live in a tent and wear pink underwear and eat baloney and do work.

2. So, if you didn’t commit a crime you wouldn’t be in there.

I wonder if they can figure out if they do No. 2, they won’t have to do No. 1?

Of course that should be written in Spanish for most to understand the words.

[righttackle44]

Our sheriff is also under attack by Mary Rose Wilcox—the Maricopa county commission who seems to be a walking pile of corruption.

[turn_to]

I support a tent city for criminals, I just don’t understand why you think no rapes occur there?

[factoryrat]

Instant protest: just add idiots and liberals! (Is that considered a double negative?). Sherriff joe should re-institue the chain gang. Make the inmates turn big rocks into little rocks, clear roadsides with little shovels, and in general make them earn their keep.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

And before the mid 1980’s, we didn’t have all the crazies and druggies on the streets, incapable of taking care of themselves. They were in institutions where they were taken care of.

But the ACLU thought that wasn’t right. So they sued and got them released.

Like the rich Seassholes who sleep in gated communities feeling so good about those they allow to sleep in the mud, the ACLU jackassess cozy themselves down at night thinking they’ve done such a gooood deed by turning those incapable of caring for themselves out onto the streets and thereby subjecting the citizenry to their crimes and filth.

[Eva]

My son had a roommate in college who had four or five DUIs and was headed for the tent city. His step-father was a well known lawyer and even he could not get him off. When the kid reported for tent city, they found another MIP that had never been settled and the kid went away to the real jail.

Believe me, the tent city was preferable.

The parents were so well off that they and another friend of his parents’ used to split the cost of a personal driver who used to pick them up every night in a Mercedes to drive them to various bars and back home in time for classes the next morning.

[smokingfrog]

"Tent city is a human rights travesty," said Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray. "We stand on the side of human rights and hope for tomorrow."

The Unitarian group is wrapping up it's week long conference in Phoenix this Sunday, but not before holding a protest vigil at Tent City on Saturday night.

They believe the outdoor jail run by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is unjust and inhuman, and they say it unfairly targets Latinos and African-Americans over whites.

The Sheriff is planning to close down his Valley jails to visitors on Saturday because of the protests, but he has also invited leaders of the protest groups to take a tour of Tent City to see what it's like on the inside.

[smokingfrog]

Looks like some Sheriff Joe supporters were there as well.

http://www.azfamily.com/video/featured-videos/Several-thousand-protest-Arpaios-Tent-City-160152175.html

[azishot]

Sheriff Joe tells them that if they don’t like it there, don’t come back. It’s very simple but of course liberals always make a simple thing sound difficult.

[goat granny]

You hit the nail on the head......GG

[The Duke]

I guess I have to agree with the protesters here. I think those tent cities are far too humane and cushy for our prisoners.

I say drop all prisoners off on the 1200-mile ling Aleutian island chain at a mile marker that is proportional to the severity of their crime ... with instructions to walk/swim home.

[Ann Archy]

Unitarians!!! It was a convention of UNITARIANS! Next step, Atheism.

[Ann Archy]

Unitarians!!! It was a convention of UNITARIANS! Next step, Atheism.