Juvenile Chain Gang

[Anonymous]

http://www.fox11az.com/news/state/stori ... a571f.html

Teen chain gang launched in Arizona
 
12:19 PM MST on Wednesday, March 10, 2004
 

By NewsChannel 3 / azfamily.com staff
 


Arizona's first teen chain gang took to the streets Wednesday, and for their efforts, they will receive high school credit, said Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.


Each chain member will remain on the gang and continue earning credits until released from county jail.

"Some people may think this program is too severe for convicted juveniles," Arpaio said, "but I don't. In fact, I believe these teenagers will benefit from a tough approach to incarceration."

Apparently, the program has been chided by the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International.

"I will not be deterred by these critics," Arpaio said. "I'm certain this will prove to be a good program."

Maricopa County began using chain gangs in 1995, and reportedly created the nation's first and only female chain gang. Both are still in operation.

Chain gangs perform a variety of tasks from curb painting to indigent burials, from landscaping to trash pickup, all of which save taxpayer money. The juveniles will perform these same tasks but with the added benefit of school credit.

"We've devised a dummy corporation," Arpaio said. "It's a landscaping/waste management company. The juveniles will be required to study all aspects of creating and running the company in order to earn high school credit. It should help them learn a number of life skills."

Arpaio said the juvenile chain gang will be visible to the general public as they perform their trash pickup and landscaping duties, allowing other children to see them on the chain gang.

"I am hopeful that this new chain gang will act as a deterrent to other teenagers who see these lawbreakers wearing black and white stripes and pink underwear working on the side of the road picking up other people's trash and trimming bushes," Arpaio said.

Also weighing into the decision to start a juvenile chain gang is the level of violent crime by juveniles, which has remained fairly steady in the United States thus far this decade.

The first location the juvenile chain gang will work is on 18th and Washington streets in Phoenix beginning at 10 a.m. Wednesday.

[Anonymous]

Here's the most recent article. Seems that just doing cleanup has taken a new sick twist.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... ury23.html

Burial chain gang gets to juveniles
 
 
Troubled kids rethinking ways

Judi Villa
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 23, 2004 12:00 AM


Orlando Corral bowed his head and recited the Lord's Prayer.

Dust swirled around him, blowing past the steel gray casket.

"Our Father, who art in heaven," the 17-year-old said, shackled to four other teenaged inmates, "hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. . . . "

The 51-year-old woman inside the casket had died alone, of heart disease, the deacon told the 10 pallbearers, all convicted criminals. No one had claimed her body.

She would be buried at the White Tanks Cemetery for indigents, next to others who will never have a fancy headstone. Some of those who find their final resting place here have been shot to death or beaten during a crime; others succumbed to years of alcohol or drug abuse, the deacon said.

Looking at the casket and listening to the deacon's words, Corral heard a lesson.

"God be with you," he prayed just before the body was lowered into the ground.

He bent down and scooped up a handful of dirt and tossed it on the casket. And he thought about how horrible it would be to die alone or because of his own actions.

"I was out there doing drugs and a lot of bad things," said Corral, who is serving eight months for armed robbery. "I could end up here.

"I'm willing to change."

Thursday was the first time the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office has used the juvenile chain gang to bury indigents at the cemetery west of Phoenix. The plots are marked only with a person's name, if it is known, and the date of death. Jets from nearby Luke Air Force Base thunder overhead, threatening to drown out the deacon's words.

"I'm hoping this sends a message to you," Sheriff Joe Arpaio told the teens before the service started. "Every life is precious. Life is very short. Remember that."

Deacon Steve Martin, of St. Clare of Assisi church in Surprise, sprinkled holy water on the casket.

"God loves you for being here to be her family," Martin told the inmates. "We are her family today."

Anthony Hines, 17, didn't expect to feel so sad.

"I didn't think it was going to be like this," he said. "These people got nobody."

And suddenly, he appreciated his own family more.

"That's somebody's life. You only get one chance at life," said Hines, convicted of burglary. "I need to be paying more attention to my family. I got a good thing going. I can't mess it up."

Maybe, he thinks, when he gets out, he could do something for somebody like the person he is burying.

He and Leslie Chavez, 17, shovel dirt onto the casket. Chavez wouldn't want this to be him, but he thinks, "This could be me if I keep running the streets."

"I've got a child on the way," Chavez said. "I can't run the streets anymore. I can't do drugs. I can't do the things I used to do.

"I gotta get out and straighten out."

And he means it.

"Some of them probably took our paths," Hines said. "This is where I could end up. Not only dead but in this place. You're never going to forget."

[Anonymous]

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... ini22.html

Using the dead to teach jailed kids the wrong lesson
 
Apr. 22, 2004 12:00 AM


Sheriff Joe Arpaio would remind us that no youngster locked up in his jail is being forced to dig graves. Each inmate participating in the sheriff's brand-new plan to have juvenile chain gang members bury indigents in a county cemetery is a volunteer. So is everyone else involved in the program. Except for those who matter most: the dead.

The sheriff told me last month that he was going to use children to bury unclaimed bodies, and he has kept his word. The public relations machine that is the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office sent out a news release earlier this week saying that juvenile chain gang members will consign to the grave poor men and women who've left this world with no money and no relations willing to pay for their funeral expenses.

Last month, while complaining to me about the fact that his juvenile chain gang hadn't generated the kind of media coverage he has come to expect, Arpaio said, "I'm going to send the juveniles from the chain gangs over to the cemetery to bury the indigent. That will probably bring in the controversy, don't you think?"

We'll see. The digging is set to begin this morning at White Tanks Cemetery in the far West Valley. All of the TV stations and newspapers have been invited.

"Many of the people buried here die alone and unloved because of the choices they made while they were alive," said Thelda Williams, the sheriff's Inmate Programs director. At least that's what she is quoted as saying in a press notice that blares across the top in big capital letters: "NATION'S FIRST JUVENILE CHAIN GANG TO BURY THE DEAD."

Williams adds, "Drug use, unrelenting alcoholism, broken families due to long-term imprisonment . . . these are some of the reasons why people end up here."

Ego is also a reason the dead wind up there. And vanity. Arrogance. Brazenness. Disrespect. And cruelty. Not on the part of the paupers, of course. But by the sheriff.

It is one thing to convince confused and convicted kids that it is in their best interest to parade around town in striped pajamas as part of a local politician's on-going re-election campaign.

It is another to say, as the sheriff says of his gravediggers, "Some people may think this program is too severe for convicted juveniles, but I don't. In fact, I believe these teenagers will benefit from a tough approach to incarceration and to the various tough jail policies I have instituted."

To that end, Arpaio says that each kid on burial detail will receive high school credit for participating. He contends that the burial program is all about teaching lessons. And he's correct.

Back in March the sheriff told me, "I don't put (chain gangs) in the desert where nobody can see them, I put them on the main drags where the mothers driving by can say to their kids, 'Hey honey, you do something wrong, you're going to be on the chain gang wearing stripes.' "

Too bad that isn't the real lesson. Instead, the young criminals under Joe's tutelage are learning that if you are in a position of power it's OK to use people over whom you have complete control for your personal or professional advantage.

They're learning that the dead need not be treated with deference and respect, but can be transformed by the living into tools of publicity or political discourse.

It doesn't matter if some of those who will be buried at White Tanks led irresponsible, even criminal, lives. It doesn't matter that they were forgotten or abandoned. They're gone now and should be allowed to rest in peace. Those who would abuse them should not.

[Anonymous]

Hey, at least they are doing this voluntarily.  Didn't have to abduct them in the middle of the night to do their gravedigging.   :rofl:

[Timoclea]

Sorry, I really don't have a problem with this.

These particular juveniles are being punished for crimes they committed, and they had a fair trial to get where they are, and they are in a public system where they have rights---including the right to visitors, mail, and probably access to a phone at least some of the time.

And no underqualified "therapists" are screwing around in their heads.

That's a huge difference from the kids in the "teen help" industry who can be sent to private prisons where they have *no* contact with the outside world other than perhaps occasionally with the parents who put them there, and without them having done anything to justify them being there, with no disinterested person making the call, and for an indeterminate sentence.

*Big* difference.

And as opposed to the alarmist and generally false "deadorinjail" rhetoric of the Programs, *these* kids on the chain gang *are* in jail!

Nope, don't have a problem with it.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there;  lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid.  She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again---and that is well;  but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search?tag=circlofmiamithem&keyword=mark+twain&mode=books' target='_new'> Mark Twain

[Anonymous]

I know of a lot of kids that would rather earn h.s.credits for digging graves.  Instead of parents fearing their child going to jail, they should be standing in line instead of bailing them out time after time.  Junior is getting a h.s. education without having to crack a book.  Better than having teachers breathing down their necks, huh?

[Anonymous]

It's about time law enforcement is doing something to make these kids accountable for their actions.  Locking them leg to leg and being little grave diggers will teach them a lot of lessons about appreciating life.  It's not like these woosey programs that teach self-esteem, self acceptance, self-control and anger management, etc.

They'd learn a hell of a lot more by wearing stripped pajamas, being locked together by leg chains and digging graves while the community watches.  

The only difference in kids on the chain gang and kids in an emotional growth program is that the kids in the emotional growth programs didn't get caught, or their parents couldn't imagine their child working in the 120 degree heat digging graves.  What is living in dorms with air conditioning teaching them anyway?

[Triumvirate]

If this man is so intent on changing criminals, why not teach them a trade rather than have them digging graves for high school credit?

High School credit?! What the hell...

Our society is just...its amazing the stuff that we allow to happen.

No wonder so many are criminals they grow up having no future, more than likely in a single parent low income family....add to that mental illness and addiction....

And then we have assholes like this sherriff whos more interested in making prisoners jail stay as inhumane as possible, and getting free curb paintings and trash picked up in his little bum fuck town..
/sarcasm on : Way to make a difference, asshole!

And Im sure he gets community praise...obviously the ignorant hicks of Whereverthehell Arizona keep voting him in..

Hes also the one I saw on TV that makes the jail Prisoners sl;eep in tents outside..we are talking people with traffic violations etc being shackled in a tent in 100 degree weather with whatever the hell snakes and shit that live in the desert...LAME

[Deborah]

Googled Arpaio. What a lunatic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=8795

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/special_ ... index.html

http://www.doney.net/aroundaz/celebrity ... iffjoe.htm

http://www.azcentral.com/news/columns/a ... ini27.html

http://www.nccprivacy.org/handv/031219villain.htm

I knew I'd heard his name in association with the Teen Warehouse Industry. Were any of the teen murders put on one of his chain gangs? He criticized Charles Long II, and shut him down, but my guess is that it had more to do with the fact that porn was found in Long's home.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_m ... ml?sect=13

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/jul20 ... -j06.shtml

http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... le5521.htm

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/Daily ... 10704.html
"If you do have this type of environment, you have to make sure it's humane," Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said.

http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0716-05.htm
To get an idea of how bad the camp is, it was shut down following Haynes' death by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Arpaio, as viewers of 60 Minutes may recall, runs a tent county jail that would not be mistaken for Club Med. Except, perhaps, by kids who had been guests of the Buffalo Soldiers.

http://www.nospank.net/double.htm
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n280/a06.html
http://www.rickross.com/reference/teenb ... oot22.html
Although there have been complaints about how long it has taken to arrest Mr. Long, Sheriff Arpaio said he needed to be sure the investigators had all the evidence before pursuing charges.

[Antigen]

I agree, Arpaio is a scary dude!

I saw a TV news magazine segment on his juvenile detention a couple of years ago. Can't remember which show. But it was the Program, complete w/ Program graduates as staff and public humiliation.

We assume that all of these kids are a danger to society and belong in a cage till they rethink their strategy. But that's not as often the case now as it might have been a couple of decades ago. They feature in the article a kid convicted of armed robery. I have no problem w/ letting kids (or adults, for that matter) work off some of their time. But, even the ones guilty of actually doing harm to real victims could do w/o the mindfuck.

Sure, some people do themselves in w/ drugs or criminal behavior. But most people who use psychotropic drugs simply never cross over into criminal behavior. What is the value of teaching these kids this big lie? And, aside from Arpaio's stellar career, what's the benefit of doing it in such a public way?

I think the second columnist is right. The major lesson here is that Joe Arpaio is a sadistic fuck who should not be entrusted w/ any authority over anybody.

A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least expect it.  That would make you quite unpopular in what's left of your unit.
-- In the August 1993 issue, page 9, of PS magazine, the Army's magazine of preventive maintenance

[notworking]

because I'm going to still be nauseated by then.  This is one of those things that is SOOOOOOOO bad, you don't even know where to start.  But here goes:

"We've devised a dummy corporation," Arpaio said. "It's a landscaping/waste management company. The juveniles will be required to study all aspects of creating and running the company in order to earn high school credit. It should help them learn a number of life skills."

Here's a thought, how about letting them earn high school credit by doing SCHOOL WORK?  There's a reason most criminals without a high school diploma are required to get their GED as a condition of probation/parole.  It's because ex cons without a high school education are MORE LIKELY TO REOFFEND, simply for economic reasons.  So why are we putting young offenders into a program that robs them of the opportunity to get an education and, instead, forces them to learn the highly marketable skills of waste management and grave digging?  Because Maricopa County needs an ongoing source of cheap labor from repeat offenders?  What is this sheriff's name again, Aldous Huxley?

"I am hopeful that this new chain gang will act as a deterrent to other teenagers who see these lawbreakers wearing black and white stripes and pink underwear working on the side of the road picking up other people's trash and trimming bushes," Arpaio said.

Yeah, because teenagers are SOOOOO good at carefully weighing risks before doing things.  That's why they have such low car insurance rates.  I'm sure that HUNDREDS of kids are going "Wow, I don't think I'm going to rob this person because I might get put on a chain gang."  Also, how is the public seeing the pink underwear?  Is this lunatic actually forcing CHILDREN to work outside in their UNDERWEAR?  Bets on what Sheriff Arpaio is doing while he thinks about "his" teenagers in their pink underwear....

"Many of the people buried here die alone and unloved because of the choices they made while they were alive," said Thelda Williams, the sheriff's Inmate Programs director.

Or maybe they were just ill, physically or mentally.  Or they were only children who didn't have anyone else once their parents died.  Or maybe they are victims of crimes that the sherrif's department is too busy abusing children to investigate.

Sorry, I really don't have a problem with this.

These particular juveniles are being punished for crimes they committed, and they had a fair trial to get where they are, and they are in a public system where they have rights---including the right to visitors, mail, and probably access to a phone at least some of the time.

Well, let's think about this.  Did they have a fair trial?  They certainly didn't have one as that term is contemplated by the Constitution.  Juveniles tried as such are not tried by a jury of their peers.  They aren't tried by a jury, period.  They often have no chance to confront their accusers.  In some cases, "trials" in juvenile court are really just formalities in which parents, the attorneys, the judge and juvenile officers sit down and brainstorm placement solutions.  Appeal rights can be attenuated or a defendant may have been counseled to plead guilty in order to avoid trial as an adult.  In all cases, juvenile court proceedings are sealed, so the public has no idea what goes on.  

The whole idea behind these modifications is, of course, to protect the juvenile involved.  The hope is that young people who make poor choices will learn from their mistakes and grow up to be productive citizens.  Because children -- even teenagers -- make decisions differently than adults, there is a sense that children may have a little less culpability when they commit crimes.  We seal proceedings to give them a fair chance to learn and become responsible without carrying the stigma of a conviction into adulthood.  

What's essentially happened here, though, is Sheriff Arpaio has unilaterally decided that juveniles deserve neither the special considerations given to them because of their age NOR the constitutional protections provided to adults.   In that sense, it's very much like kids who are sent to "therapeutic programs."  The assumption is that kids have to be forced into residential programs because they have more emotional and educational needs than adults do and don't fully understand what's best for them.  Once they're there, though, they are treated much more harshly than adults would be because, of course, adults would have the right to leave.  

Child abuse is child abuse, regardless of where it happens.  No child deserves to be abused.

[Anonymous]

I don't agree that work, even on a chain gang, is child abuse.

Being on a chain gang *would* be abuse if you hadn't done anything to deserve punishment---like being grounded would be abuse if you hadn't done anything to deserve it.

If juveniles are not getting fair trials, if their parents are *not* representing their interests the way the law presumes they will, then that part of the system needs to be fixed.

[Anonymous]

These kids on the chain gang seem to look at it as an adventure.  Who wouldn't?  They don't have to earn A's or even D's in Math or English to graduate from H.S. I wonder how Sheriff Arpaio is going to side skirt the AIMS testing.  It's a mandatory test in Arizona in order to graduate H.S.

The deeper issue is that some on this forum think it's okay to do this just because the kid was convicted of a crime.  How many kids out there are essentially guilty of the same crimes, but are not caught, or their parents pay HUGE amounts of money to bail their kid out of juvie, usually more than once?  All they're learning is that mummy and daddy will keep bailing them out and buy them a new car or whatever, instead of  letting them learn "real" cause and effect.  

I'd opt for paying that money to a program if it ever looked like it would come to that.  Is digging graves, wearing pink skivvies in 100 plus heat the legacy most parents would want for their child?   ::armed::

If the legal system gets involved in convicting kids, then they need to have more juvenile jails, cuz the parents certainly won't be paying for this kind of treatment.

First Phoenix, next the rogue sheriffs in the US will be implementing this kind of "legal" abuse.

[Antigen]

Like I said, I've read reports and watched news stories on tv about this guy. In my opinion, he's working a lighter version of the Program in the public sector. He's eliminating as much as he can of the right to self determination that God gave us all and that only a very evil person would try to take, by force, from anyone, especially a child.

It's wront when WWASP does it, it was wrong when Art Barker and Miller Newton do it, it's wrong when Douglass Talbott does it and it's wrong when Joe Arpaio does it. Moreso because he does it under color of law and at the public's direct expense.

"The FARC is part of the history of Colombia and a historical phenomenon", (President Pastrana) says, "and they must be treated as Colombians". ... They come and ask for bread [aid from Washington], and you give them stones.

Robert White is a former American ambassador to Paraguay and El Salvador, and former No. 2 man with the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, is president of the Centre for International Policy in Washington D.C.
http://narconews.com/' target='_new'>Robert White

[Anonymous]

:idea:

Just don't break the law in Phoenix!  Everyone knows what his jails are all about, and if they choose to break the law, then they have created where they are, eating green bologna, working on a chain gang and living in tents in the desert heat.

I wonder if the pink underware makes their asses any cooler under the black and white uniforms they wear?

Miserable, yes.  Inhumane, no.  They did it to themselves.