DRESSED IN ORANGE JUMPSUITS and chained at the ankles in groups of five, 15 women fan out as best they can along a tattered strip of grass in downtown Phoenix. The first woman in each line swipes at knee-high weeds with a shovel, the next rakes debris into piles, and the others stuff bags with rakings. The prisoners, convicted of crimes ranging from prostitution to armed robbery, are interrupted by TV crews moving in for closeups and by reporters from as far away as Finland. Joe Arpaio, a 357 revolver strapped to his waist and four stars pinned to each collar, admires his handiwork—the nation's first-ever female chain gang.
"What's the big thing? It's only common sense," boasts Arpaio, 64, who began a chain gang for men last year with volunteers desperate to earn their way out of punitive lockup. "I'm an equal opportunity incarcerator."
Arpaio, the popular Maricopa County sheriff whose jail system is among the 10 largest in the U.S., works hard to live up to his self-chosen title as America's toughest lawman. Of the 6,500 men and women in his charge, more than 1,400 are bunked in Army surplus tents erected in a desert where summer temperatures can soar to 115°F. ("If our troops in Desert Storm could sleep in tents, they're good enough for inmates," he says.) He has banned adult magazines (including Penthouse and Playboy), cigarettes and even coffee, and serves skimpy meals that cost the county only 37 cents each and consist sometimes of off-colored bologna. "Jail should be punishment," says Arpaio, who hopes his prisoners will think twice before returning. "I want to make it so bad that maybe I can reduce crime."
Those tactics have earned Arpaio a 79 percent local approval rating and made him a national figure, drawing such admirers as Bob Dole, who recently toured the tent jail. But his unseemly mix of tough justice and grandstanding has also brought harsh criticism. "He has this perverse need for publicity that is really clinically abnormal," snaps Nick Hentoff, a Phoenix lawyer representing several inmates who have claimed the sheriff's deputies use excessive force. Others doubt Arpaio's policies reduce crime. "There's no question, this [the female chain gang] is sound-bite criminal justice," says Donna Hamm, director of Middle Ground, a prison-reform group.
A more powerful critic, the U.S. Department of Justice, has also found fault with Arpaio's jail system, alleging in a report last March that prisoners have been zapped at random with stun guns and also hog-tied. Guards have also acted with "deliberate indifference" to medical problems, the report says, noting that they ignored the complaints of inmates who broke their teeth on rocks that had somehow become mixed in with prison food. Arpaio, who denies any wrongdoing, dismisses the report, saying simply, "They came up with no names, no times, nothing."
Last spring, Scott Norberg, 33, a father of two and a suspect in an assault against a police officer, died while under arrest. Dale Shumway, who is planning to file a $4.5 million wrongful death suit on behalf of Norberg's family, contends that Norberg was severely beaten and died of asphyxiation with his arms shackled behind his back. "He was executed," says Shumway. With the incident under investigation by the FBI, Arpaio says, "I can't comment."
Born in Springfield, Mass., the son of a grocer and a mother who died giving birth to him, Arpaio dreamed since childhood of becoming a police officer. After serving in the Korean War, he joined the force in Washington in 1954. He combined street smarts with stubborn pugnacity and claims with pride that he was once named the department's most-assaulted officer. "I was young, aggressive, and I didn't take a lot of garbage," he says.
When Arpaio began working as an undercover federal drug agent in 1957, crime fighting became a family affair. Ava, now 65, his wife of 38 years and mother of their two grown children, helped gain the confidence of drug dealers by flirting with them on the phone. "He'd play a gangster, and I was his girlfriend," she says.
Rising through the ranks of the Bureau of Narcotics (later the Drug Enforcement Agency), Arpaio moved his family 14 times, including stints in Turkey, Mexico and finally Phoenix, where he retired in 1982. The couple settled into a three-bedroom, Mexican-style house, and Arpaio helped Ava with a travel agency she had started. But he grew restless and in 1992 ran for sheriff on a "get-tough" platform.
Arpaio lived up to his billing. He organized citizens into armed posses to patrol streets and shopping malls. At the jail, he replaced R-rated movies with selections from the Disney Channel, then even discontinued those. Now inmates can choose from C-SPAN, the Weather Channel and Newt Gingrich's 10-part video on citizenship. At one point, when Arpaio discovered that boxer shorts stenciled with the M.C.S.O. sheriff's logo were being stolen and sold as souvenirs, he brought the trade to a halt by dyeing all underwear a cuddly shade of pink. Adding insult to injury, he began selling a jazzier version printed with the logo "Go Joe" and his signature. So far, he has raised more than $500,000 to buy cars and computers for his civilian posses.
The deployment of the female chain gang on Sept. 19 has proved to be Arpaio's chef d'oeuvre in terms of attracting attention. Yet despite protests from Donna Hamm's prison-reform group, the chain gang has won some support from gang members. "We did volunteer for this," notes Annette Torrez, 29, convicted of trafficking in stolen property. "We don't want anybody to put us down for it." Veronica Navarro, 26, a former crack dealer, credits Arpaio's approach with convincing her to drop drugs for good. As TV cameras roll, Navarro shuffles up to Arpaio and shakes his hand. "Thank you," she says. Arpaio scowls. "You're ruining my reputation," he replies. "Don't you ever say you like the sheriff!"
CURTIS RIST
MICHAEL HAEDERLE in Phoenix
- Contributors:
- Michael Haederle.
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