Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a relentless self-promoter who christened himself “The World’s Toughest Sheriff,” has invited Phoenix-area parents to send their grade school and teenage kids to jail for the summer.
“Summer Stars” is a two-day program supposedly intended to teach impressionable youngsters about the rigors of life behind bars, thereby deterring them from bad behavior. The program will be held in two sessions – June 23-24, and July 21-22 – and will be open for students from ages 8 to 18.
Arpaio’s department says that the experience is “designed to show young people the realities of jail life and prevent them from getting involved in illegal activity,” reports KTVK News in Phoenix. Participants will wear prisoner attire, work as inmate laborers, eat jail food, sleep in tents or bunks, and be required to follow jail regulations. Arpaio inexplicably assures parents that the temporary inmates “will have some fun, too” – which to any informed resident of Maricopa County would seem like a threat, rather than an assurance, especially to parents of children who are, or who might be mistaken to be, of Latino ancestry. After all, there is a very good chance that the senescent sheriff may soon find himself facing felony charges before a federal court for abusing people of that description. Continue reading…
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