Sheriff makes inmates pay for spoiled food

Right-wing Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, has long been a publicity-seeking galoot and media fave.

Arpaio is known for making inmates view tapes of Newt Gingrich speeches and boasting about feeding them lunchmeat that had begun turning green - meaning it was spoiled. (Even at one of the supermarkets near my home that only sells lunchmeat if it's 6 weeks past its expiration date, the meat has yet to turn green.)

Now Arpaio has decreed that many of the inmates are going to be required to pay for the rotten food themselves.

How does he expect them to pay? Do inmates make money in jail? Somehow I doubt it.

Remember, this is jail, not prison. So many of the detainees are held pending trial and have yet to be convicted.

This is the same Joe Arpaio who denied an inmate with Crohn's disease his medication that would have cost only a few dollars. This withholding of medicine resulted in the inmate needing 2 major surgeries, which cost county taxpayers dearly.

(Source: http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/271508.php)