After a few days of rain and cloud the blue skies and warm sunshine returns to our corner of southern Arizona. So we were back in the outdoor pool and with a little help from a modified neck pillow Carol is making good progress with swimming. A width is now easy and we are working on breathing .
I wish I could say the same about my progress on the poker table but the local sharks are treating me like a fish and taking my money!
JANUARY 2 Our visit to Tent City Jail.
We checked in to jail at 2 pm on Friday
not sure what to expect. We had heard of Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his tent jail but here we were in Maricopa county to see how it was in real life. After a brief introduction we were soon at the gate in the razor wire fence with the next step we were inside. The clunks of the locks signified we were inside, what some inmates call, the toughest jail in the USA. It reaches 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer and drops below zero in the winter.
But rain, hail, sun or snow the inmates sleep in bunks in tents. Male or female they wear pink socks and pink underwear. There is no privacy as the tents sleep 50 or so and in summer they are near capacity. But Joe keeps the VACANCY sign burning high above the jail on an unused watchtower and says he will always find space for lawbreakers. This is important in Maricopa county as, unlike most of the rest of the states, here if you are caught driving drunk you go to jail
We only expected to see an empty cell or tent but much to our surprise we actually were walked through the woman’s facility and right through the common room which was air conditioned and into the tent city. Everywhere there were woman in striped clothes some chatting some reading but many just lying on their bunks just ‘ stacking time ‘. As many of these woman had not seen a man for a while I felt pretty uneasy and more than a little vulnerable as we walked through within touching distance of the inmates.
We were not allowed to speak to or take any pictures of the prisoners but the jailors who showed us around filled us in on Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s use of chain gangs
[ APPROVED PIC!]
to provide labour for burial of the unclaimed dead, road clean up and workers in his animal rehabilitation center. { The chains are off for the last one. But for the rest they are in leg irons. }
Some of stories about the jail turned out to be urban myths. They are not fed green out of date meat, They do have access to TV, but only 4 educational channels and no football. But there is no smoking, newspapers, coffee and the food is very very bland.
The jailors showed us the sort of things that were confiscated and amongst the home made knives, was a home made tattoo machine, a set of nunchucks and saddest of all, a pink teddy bear made from towels.
We were both very happy to hear the outer gate open for us and as we walked out into the Arizona sunshine we decided we would definitely avoid finishing up in the pink tent city jail.
John needn’t have worried about being eaten alive by sex starved women, they were too busy picking up clean towels. The ones outside couldn’t be bothered to stir off of their bunks. These bunks looked like metal market stalls with a foam mattress on top.
Anyway he grabbed my hand for protection and shuffled along side. I must admit to an uneasy feeling as we were told we were going in with the inmates. I think I would rather be dead than shut in a prison, albeit an open one like this one.
The sheriff that runs this prison is an animal rights supporter and runs a service that looks after pets for the inmates while they are serving their time. The service also includes animals seized pending cruelty charges and are then put up for re-homing.
Didn’t go there, haven’t got room for a kennel full of abused pets desperately wanting someone to love them, and I’m not strong enough to walk away.
No comments:
Post a Comment