# Joe Arapaio, Sentient Pustule **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 25, 2010, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376 "2010-12-25T21:14:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/221 "2011-01-05T01:03:46Z")
Funny thing on a board where the goal is fighting ignorance asking to see some actual evidence rather than just assumptions. Stupid me. ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/222 "2011-01-05T01:19:11Z")
[QUOTE=Uzi] I haven’t moved any goal posts. I’ve been stating the same thing over and over again, but people are too moronic to get the point. Joe has been running his jail for years. It just wasn’t yesterday that he was serving crappy food, he’s been doing it for years. If during that time there were people suffering the affects of malnutrition then someone would have pounced on that and viola, lawsuit. [/quote] > **[Arpaio Sued for Detainee Mistreatment and Death - IMAGINE 2050](https://newcomm.org/files/imagine2050-sub/2009/07/23/arpaio-sued-for-detainee-mistreatment-and-death/)** > > Sheriff Arpaio of Maricopa County is facing two more lawsuits due to the mistreatment and death of inmates at his prisons. The details of the death of David McClurg are especially tragic. A diabetic, McClurg developed gangrene within six weeks after... > [@](#): > > A diabetic, McClurg developed gangrene within six weeks after being detained. He was a pretrial detainee, which means he had not been convicted of a crime. > > His family maintains that he was housed in overcrowded conditions and not provided a diet necessary for a diabetic. Apparently McClurg’s diet changed so radically for the worse upon entering the Maricopa County jail system that it was the first time he experienced symptoms. > > Before his death, David had to have toes and part of his leg amputated. Not only was McClurg robbed of his life, he also endured severe suffering unnecessarily. Hey, guess what, there’s your lawsuit. [QUOTE=Uzi] But the lawsuit wasn’t about that. It was about inedible food and not meeting dietary guidelines as a result. No mention of anyone actually suffering because of it. Not even a comparison to another jail somewhere. Population A has these health issues, Population B doesn’t because they get 2 a meal vs the .14 a meal that Pop A gets. [/quote] The court decision found that the food was inadequate. It hardly requires a cite to say that inadequate nutrition eventually leads to malnutrition, does it? Is that what you’re asking for? How long does a person have to be fed an inadequate diet before you’ll say “OK, that’s actually suffering”? A week? 6 months? 5 years? Or does somebody actually have to die of rickets or scurvy or food poisoning before you can say it’s been demonstrated that it’s “actually suffering”? And at which point it’s clear that something should have been done long before? That’s what the court has already done; admonished Arpaio hopefully before somebody died of his mistreatment. Except if you ask McClurg’s family, it was in fact too late. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/223 "2011-01-05T01:32:50Z")
> [@Jenaroph](#): > > [IMAGINE 2050Arpaio Sued for Detainee Mistreatment and Death - IMAGINE 2050](http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2009/07/23/arpaio-sued-for-detainee-mistreatment-and-death/) Hey, guess what, there’s your lawsuit. Okay, you’ve got a lawsuit that says someone with a pre-existing condition didn’t get the food they needed: Assuming the food they could have gotten somewhere else would have been sufficient to avoid the issue and assuming that if he had remained on the outside he wouldn’t have suffered the same fate. > [@](#): > > Or does somebody actually have to die of rickets or scurvy or food poisoning before you can say it’s been demonstrated that it’s “actually suffering”? Cases of food poisoning. Most food poisoning doesn’t end up in death. You’d have to compare it with other locations to ensure that it is worse than average. Or are you saying that no cases of food poisoning should ever occur? I can’t imagine any cafeteria with that sort of track record. Someone who has early signs of scurvy? I assume that when you get scurvy you don’t drop dead instantly. It was said earlier that the courts provide oversight to the jail system. Why don’t they do some of these studies then rather than just respond to adhoc court cases. ---
**Author:** ![lel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8797f3/32.png) [@lel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lel)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/224 "2011-01-05T01:35:08Z")
> [@DoctorJ](#): > > Once again, the people in Arpaio’s custody have, by definition, not been convicted of a crime. (It’s a travesty, IMO, that the courts are so backed up that suspects can be locked up for months without a conviction, but that’s another thread.) > > We’re also not criticizing him because he isn’t putting his inmates in tastefully decorated suites with flatscreens and Sleep Number beds. It’s about edible food and adequate nutrition. > > Arpaio isn’t an asshole because he believes jail shouldn’t be a comfortable place. He’s an asshole because he takes such glee in cruelty. Even if you believe that inmates should be treated like animals (and I don’t), a principled man would regard it as a necessary evil and not something to be proud of. One gets the impression that the only things keeping him from making his inmates survive on one another’s feces and subjecting them to weekly televised ball-tazing are the namby-pamby liberals. Or namby-pamby conservatives, for that matter. There’s a lot of Republicans who think Arpaio’s just a media whore. > [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > I have always contended that part of a sentence should be to get some marketable skills, if the person doesn’t have any. Yes, this means that sentences will be longer, in some cases, and indeterminate. But if someone CAN’T make a living other than by stealing or dealing or peddling ass, what better use of his/her time? Now try to find someone who will hire a reformed convict in a crappy economy. As far as I can tell all my ex-con co-workers were all hired before the economy tanked. > [@jlzania](#): > > Agreed but it’s not always a lack of marketable skills either. > S.B. (the man that works here with us) received restaurant kitchen training while in prison. > He can cook. He’s not a chef but he is qualified to either do basic short order stuff or work under a chef. > However, there’s very little work in our rural county (which is experiencing a shitty economy right now) for a black man that’s spent the last 3 1/2 years in prison. > He can’t move to Austin or another larger city with greater opportunities because one condition of his parole is that he lives with his parents. > Even if he could get that changed, he doesn’t have the money for rent or deposits or the 100 little things you have to pull together financially when you try to live on your own. > After he was released, the only real help he got besides a free place to live was the old car his brother gave him. > Oh, and his cousin did offer him a job of sorts-he offered to stake him so that he could start selling pounds again. :rolleyes: > > I get really frustrated with the attitudes expressed by \*\*Starving Artist \*\*and \*\*Uzi \*\*because there are lots of S.B.'s out there. > They not evil criminals out raping and killing-they’re basically people that fucked up and now can’t get off the treadmill. > Feeding them a substandard diet just exacerbates their problems when released. > And it costs me the tax payer more money in the long run because it’s another stumbling block that can prevent ex-felons becoming permanently employed. > Which means I may very well likely end up paying for them to be incarcerated again. > And on and on and on. That’s the thing. Even in a good economy it’s hell trying to find a job if you’ve been behind bars. I can’t imagine now. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/225 "2011-01-05T02:20:57Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > …Hey, **luci** , how would you feel about asking the mods to insert **Uzi** ’s name after Joe’s in the thread title? Wouldn’t be fair. Joe Arapaio is a fact, a verifiable mean sumbitch who is on record as doing rotten shit to helpless people, presumably because he likes to. Joe is certified, the genuine article. **Uzi** is simply a dancing vortex of very negative electrons. I doubt he’s actually guilty of anything much . Unless those rumors of nieghborhood pets disappearing are true, but I don’t really believe them. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/226 "2011-01-05T02:22:05Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Unless those rumors of nieghborhood pets disappearing are true, but I don’t really believe them. I sell them to Joe. Where do you think he gets his ‘meat’ from? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/227 "2011-01-05T02:32:36Z")
I kan bee cheezburgger? - [www.joekatz.com](http://www.joekatz.com) ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/228 "2011-01-05T03:02:57Z")
I’d make a joke about gangrene, an amputated leg and rotten bologna but that’d be too tasteless even for the pit. ---
**Author:** ![lel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8797f3/32.png) [@lel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lel)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/229 "2011-01-05T03:15:25Z")
Eh, he probably feeds prisoners meat from the bodies of illegal immigrants. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/230 "2011-01-05T03:26:03Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > I’d make a joke about gangrene, an amputated leg and rotten bologna but that’d be too tasteless even for the pit. Well, inedible anyway. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/231 "2011-01-05T04:33:54Z")
> [@lel](#): > > Eh, he probably feeds prisoners meat from the bodies of illegal immigrants. 😉 Then sells his prisoners to Mexico. Soylent Gringo, they call it. ---
**Author:** ![Cyningablod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@Cyningablod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyningablod)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/232 "2011-01-05T05:14:29Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > Stupid me. Indeed. That much is quite clear. ---
**Author:** ![Cyningablod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@Cyningablod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyningablod)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/233 "2011-01-05T05:17:14Z")
* * * ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/234 "2011-01-05T05:18:02Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > I understand quite well. I think Macaroni and Cheese is inedible. Yet many a college student thrives upon it. The court found that the food was inedible. Yet people aren’t starving or suffering from malnutrition. You know nothing about courts and judicial opinions, do you? A court doesn’t use inedible in the way you do, or people do in casual conversation. Because you thinking Macaroni and Cheese to be inedible is irrelevant. A federal court finding prisoner food inedible is a very significant thing, and not done based on the sort of bullshit you think it is. Your argument here is possibly the most stupid thing I have ever read on these boards. It is akin to saying that because you think your friend liking a particular movie is insane, when a court makes a ruling that a defendant is insane, it is commenting on the defendant’s taste in movies. > [@Uzi](#): > > The prisoners were unhealthy then? > Oh, I get it. The judge says they weren’t getting enough of ‘A’ without which they would be sick. Are they sick? Yes. Why? Because they aren’t getting enough of ‘A’. Interesting argument. > > So, A = Healthy group; A-1= Not Healthy group. Observable difference between the two groups? Apparently none, because if there was someone would certainly have provided the evidence of people getting sick or suffering. > Maybe the prisoners were actually getting ‘A’, or maybe ‘A’ as a variable has a wider range than we think to maintain adequate nutrition. The evidence of this was the court finding the food inadequate to maintain health. The court found that! You can bullshit around it as much as you want, but the court, with the evidence in front of it, found that. Which yes, means the prisoners were malnourished. Or suffering from malnutrition. The court found the diet was unhealthy - this is a fucking straight definitional thing. Malnutrition and starvation are different things. You don’t need to be wandering around like a Belsen victim. You can even be getting sufficient calories and be malnourished. You can put on weight and be malnourished. The court found the diet fed to the prisoners did not meet the required standards for adequate nourishment for semi-active adult men. Not that it wasn’t pretty, or wasn’t tasty, but that it was a diet that led to malnourishment. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/235 "2011-01-05T05:21:06Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > It was said earlier that the courts provide oversight to the jail system. Why don’t they do some of these studies then rather than just respond to adhoc court cases. Google “case and controversy”, you imbecile. Courts cannot just launch studies, that is not what they are there for. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/236 "2011-01-05T05:40:57Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Malnutrition and starvation are different things. You don’t need to be wandering around like a Belsen victim. You can even be getting sufficient calories and be malnourished. You can put on weight and be malnourished. The court found the diet fed to the prisoners did not meet the required standards for adequate nourishment for semi-active adult men. Not that it wasn’t pretty, or wasn’t tasty, but that it was a diet that led to malnourishment. And yet, they didn’t say that anyone was actually malnourished or suffering from it. Are the courts deliberately being opaque? They could have said that this prisoner ‘Jim’ was suffering. Or Bob, or Bill or whoever. They said that the diet didn’t meet some arbitrary recommended ‘standard’ for diets that most people don’t get in any case. It doesn’t mean that people were dropping like flies because again and for the umpteenth time, they’d have presented that evidence multiple times over and it would be broadcast to the world by now. > [@](#): > > Courts cannot just launch studies, that is not what they are there for. Not even the ones who are supposed to provide oversight as someone mentioned earlier? Not much ability for oversight if true, idjit. And if not them then who does provide oversight and makes sure the policies are followed? Keebler elves? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/237 "2011-01-05T05:43:21Z")
> [@villa](#): > > … but that it was a diet that led to malnourishment. Aha! “… **led** to malnourishment…”! Not that it was malnourishment, but a hypothetical malnourishment, which hadn’t yet happened! ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/238 "2011-01-05T05:52:04Z")
It is possible to be malnourished without showing symptoms. The body is in a poor state of health without specific symptoms and has no reserve for extra stress. Example: A very low intake of Vit. C can be enough to prevent scurvy but if the person suffers a cut, healing can be difficult or non-existent. ---
**Author:** ![Cyningablod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@Cyningablod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyningablod)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/239 "2011-01-05T06:06:39Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > And yet, they didn’t say that anyone was actually malnourished or suffering from it. The court didn’t _need_ to, shithead. The facts of the case speak for themselves. (Even to you; you just refuse to hear them.) > [@](#): > > Are the courts deliberately being opaque? They could have said that this prisoner ‘Jim’ was suffering. Or Bob, or Bill or whoever. Don’t be fucking specious. They didn’t. need. to. The question was about the actual nutritional value of the jail’s diet, not to what degree the prisoners had suffered, or even if they had materially suffered at all (even though they verifiably had; see **Jenaroph** ’s link above for only one tiny example). When courts–or government regulating agencies–decide that there’s too much tar and nicotine in cigarettes or too much carbon monoxide in a particular vehicle model’s emissions, they don’t. fucking. need. to see if anyone ever was or ever will be directly harmed by these contaminants. We know enough about air pollution, tobacco toxicity, and yes, BASIC HUMAN DIETARY REQUIREMENTS to recognize dangers and liabilities on face value. So knock off the disinegenuous “was anyone ever really HARMED??” bullshit. It’s not getting you anywhere, and you fucking know it. > [@](#): > > They said that the diet didn’t meet some arbitrary recommended ‘standard’ for diets that most people don’t get in any case. […] If you think USDA or Bureau of Prisons or AZ state dietary nutritional guidelines are “arbitrary”, then you’re far more clueless than you appear even here (which is a scary thought). Try eating a diet for a few months that doesn’t meet these “arbitrary” requirements. Then we’ll see how you’ve fared. > [@](#): > > It doesn’t mean that people were dropping like flies because again and for the umpteenth time, they’d have presented that evidence multiple times over and it would be broadcast to the world by now. No, they wouldn’t have, because that’s NOT. WHAT. THE. CASE. WAS. ABOUT. Was that too fast? Should I slow down, or use even smaller words? Maybe words with _less_ than one syllable? ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/240 "2011-01-05T09:07:43Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > And why can’t there be open-air tent-city prisons similar to ol’ Joe’s jail? Surely cyclone fencing and canvas tents are less expensive than the huge monuments to concrete that we’ve been using for so long. At least, you know, until the judges mandate enough prisons to actually keep people behind bars. We tried that during the Second Anglo-South African War, and it worked well. Johnny Boer was a gentleman even if he didn’t sit down to be shot at, but because of his unfair tactics we had to imprison his womenfolk and the childer. There was a bit of a rocky start, but once the tents were up everything went swimmingly. Obviously there had to be a few deaths which no-one regretted more than ourselves; but in the end we were the best of friends afterwards. It’s important to provide water, especially in very hot climates. This was a lesson we were slow to learn. > [@Uzi](#): > > I understand quite well. I think Macaroni and Cheese is inedible. Yet many a college student thrives upon it. The court found that the food was inedible. Yet people aren’t starving or suffering from malnutrition. You are understandably confusing unpalatable with inedible. The first is sour-tasting potatoes; the second is rocks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376.md?page=13)