# 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:** 2
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/21 "2010-12-26T02:35:23Z")
Like **Little Nemo** says, there are many more and better reasons to get upset with Arpaio. This item is small potatoes. …and ketchup and pickles, and salsa, and most vegetables like in a typical prison lunch meal. ---
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/22 "2010-12-26T02:36:47Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Oh, I don’t know. How is that any more mean than a caroling contest in a private firm to win prizes or money? I don’t think most people regard it as mean that the employees who don’t win don’t get prizes even though they’d almost certainly like to have them. Arpaio is simply offering a perk as a prize for winning the contest. I’m just not really seeing that as being cruel. Like I said, it’s not really cruel. Just kind of dickish. I’d say it’s different from a private firm in that the prize in a private contest is something fun and fluffy like some nice baked goods or an electronic toy of some kind. It’s a trivial thing that you enter for fun and if you don’t win, your life doesn’t get more miserable. Winning an upgrade from lousy food (which is all you have to eat) to better food seems harsher. The idea of it doesn’t fill me with outrage really. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/23 "2010-12-26T02:44:38Z")
Although a foreigner, and most certainly not liberal, I have wondered elsewhere why, in a land where one of the minor sports is offing each other\*, no enraged ex-prisoner has eliminated Mr. Arapaio. Needless to say, I am not advocating this: in fact my feelings at such an outrage would be precisely the same as elucidator’s. Just surprising… And 14 cents ? What do they usually feed them on outside the festive season ? Iron filings ? - [**[Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States)**: I_ra M. Leonard has calculated that during the 20th century, more Americans were murdered by fellow Americans than soldiers died on active duty during the First World War, Second World War, Korean War and the Vietnam War combined._ ] ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/24 "2010-12-26T03:02:11Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > 'cause otherwise the streets wouldn’t be safe in our own homes…Oh, wait! We’ve got that already! So now you’re blaming liberals for the fact that it’s unsafe to have a street in your home? Jesus! ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/25 "2010-12-26T03:09:24Z")
I’m about as conservative as it gets, and I am in favor of punishment. A punishment that I don’t favor for even convicted criminals, let alone ones awaiting trial, is slow starvation. Economies of scale, my ass. A government school lunch around here costs about $2.50. There is no way that a grown man can get all of the nutrition needed on 14 fucking cents. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/26 "2010-12-26T03:18:56Z")
Its at least in part because we monkeys are suckers for tough guys, especially those of us who are testosterone-impaired. Guy gets up there and scratches his hairy nuts, juts out his chin and says he’s gonna get tough on whatever, we get all loosey-goosey, like a preteen girl meeting Justin Booby. Maybe someday we’ll just run out of tough guys, or maybe we’ll stop listening. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/27 "2010-12-26T03:24:11Z")
I tried, but could never feed the kids on less than a dollar a day, they get all surly and snappish. Physically weaker, sure, but much more cunning and treacherous. Don’t like the cereal that makes its own gravy. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/28 "2010-12-26T03:24:52Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Let’s face it, if you’re accused of a crime - which 99.9% of the time you’ve actually committed (_“CITE!!!”_) … Yes, please. I’d like a cite that 99.9% of those arrested are convicted of a crime. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/29 "2010-12-26T03:37:53Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It’s economics of scale. If you’re feeding several hundred people the same meal, you can really cut down on your production costs by dealing in bulk. I won’t claim fourteen cents but we normally paid an average of about seventy cents per person per meal. And the food was decent enough that I would eat it. Yes, I’m absolutely aware of economies of scale. It’s certainly cheaper to buy in bulk. What, in bulk, provides prisoners with a healthy and nutritious diet for 14 cents a meal? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/30 "2010-12-26T03:39:03Z")
“Let’s face it” is **Starkese** for “I’m about to put forward a bald assertion based on nothing more substantial than my vast experience and intelligence.” Lot of tough guy groupies do that, they phrase it in such a way as to imply that if you don’t immediately agree, its because “You can’t _HANDLE_ the truth!” ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/31 "2010-12-26T03:51:45Z")
He doesn’t have one – it’s just something he knows is right from his experience. Or if he does have one, he’s about to head out the door, and can’t post it right now. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/32 "2010-12-26T04:37:14Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > Although a foreigner, and most certainly not liberal, I have wondered elsewhere why, in a land where one of the minor sports is offing each other\*, no enraged ex-prisoner has eliminated Mr. Arapaio. > > Just surprising… > > - [**[Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States)**: I_ra M. Leonard has calculated that during the 20th century, more Americans were murdered by fellow Americans than soldiers died on active duty during the First World War, Second World War, Korean War and the Vietnam War combined._ ] Huh? There’s no real logic in what you’re saying, the U.S. has a higher than average homicide rate but it isn’t like people getting murdered is this amazingly common thing. Something like 5 out of 100,000, and it’s not even in the top 10 of causes of death for Americans in any given year. Further, whatever envelope math Ira Leonard did isn’t really that significant or noteworthy. The United States suffered very, very few casualties in World War I, II, Korean War, and Vietnam War. The highest death rate of any of those wars relative to U.S. total population was WW2 at 0.29% of the ~1946 U.S. population lost over the entire period of U.S. involvement in the war. Comparatively France lost 4.29% and Germany 3.8% of its population to combat deaths in WW1, France lost 1.5% of its population to combat deaths in WW2 (and it didn’t have huge armies fighting for most of the war) and Germany lost over 7.7% by the most conservative estimates. Further more, have you looked into the statistics on criminals committing “revenge killings” against persons in the criminal justice system? How many times have prison guards, prison staff, judges, prosecutors and et cetera been killed outside of the walls of an actual prison or criminal justice facility as some form of retaliation by a released convict? Has it happened? Yes, but it is vanishingly rare. And there are probably individual prison guards who have committed vastly graver and more personal offenses against inmates all throughout the country who live their entire lives without anyone ever coming after them. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/33 "2010-12-26T05:07:54Z")
I have to wonder how that rate of “Americans killing Americans” compares to fratricide in other countries. I always hear about the high number of handgun murders in the US, but how about knives, or strangulation, or good old fashioned clubbing? America probably doesn’t do badly at all, it you’re looking only at 20th century data. Maybe we were lucky getting mostly out of the civil war and genocide business in the 19th. And when you consider Stalin’s purges, Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Hitler’s… ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/34 "2010-12-26T05:26:29Z")
What _does_ an inmate get for 14 cents? How many calories? Vitamin content? ---
**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:** [December 26, 2010, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/35 "2010-12-26T05:36:59Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > Yes, I’m absolutely aware of economies of scale. It’s certainly cheaper to buy in bulk. What, in bulk, provides prisoners with a healthy and nutritious diet for 14 cents a meal? > [@Czarcasm](#): > > What _does_ an inmate get for 14 cents? How many calories? Vitamin content? Oatmeal, rice and beans, couple of slices of cheap bread/peanut butter/jelly. Probably plenty of ways to do it, can’t comment on the nutrition levels. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/36 "2010-12-26T05:50:00Z")
A prisoner would probably get more nutrition by eating 14 actual cents. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/37 "2010-12-26T06:25:48Z")
AFAIK the reports I saw do mention that the low price comes from a system that is used in other places: The food comes from other government departments or local restaurants that was not used that day. Unfortunately the critics also mention that rotten food has appeared in the menu. (This happens often thanks to the heat and using older than a day food, there are solutions for problems like that, but then again he would not be able to boast of being a cheapskate) [http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1929920,00.html](http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1929920,00.html) > [@](#): > > • [Arpaio] Says he provides the cheapest prisoner meals in the U.S., at just 15 cents each. **He also reduced meals in the country’s prisons to two a day, to save on labor costs**. Inadequate meals were one reason a federal judge ruled against Arpaio and the county in 2008, finding that they violated prisoners’ constitutional rights by depriving them of appropriate health care and housing them in unsanitary conditions. The judge noted that many inmates were forced to eat moldy bread and rotten fruit. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/38 "2010-12-26T06:43:39Z")
Well, don’t forget the educational value, here, as well as nutritional. We are advising them, instructing them as to the true nature of thier relationship to society. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/39 "2010-12-26T07:28:02Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Oh, I don’t know. How is that any more mean than a caroling contest in a private firm to win prizes or money? That’s pretty much the perfect comparison, actually. It describes exactly the level of outrage this story raises in me: about as much as if my office had a caroling contest and handed out, say, $5 Starbucks gift cards to the winners. Which is to say: not very much at all. Enough for me to think, “Jesus, just shut up and go back to work,” but not enough for me to actually complain about it. On the 14 cents a day thing, my first inclination is to assume that it’s too little, simply because Arapaio thinks its a good idea. But, really, I have no basis to judge if that’s too little. I could easily see getting an acceptable meal for that price, if the scale is large enough. Especially if it scales all the way up to the state level. If all the prisons are buying the same food at the same time, that could massively drop the per-inmate price. The reports that Arapaio had been underfeeding his prisoners is disturbing (if unsurprising) but it’s possible that the 14 cent figure is what it was corrected to after the judge ruled against him. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376/40 "2010-12-26T07:44:39Z")
Here’s an article…it’s actually from 2007, about a riot at Yuma County jail over a switch in their menus/food service provider, but it talks about food in all of Arizona’s counties: [http://www.yumasun.com/news/food-36381-jail-county.html](http://www.yumasun.com/news/food-36381-jail-county.html) > [@](#): > > Mohave County jail also uses Canteen Correctional Services, and has for the past five years, according to deputy director Jeffrey Brown. > > “They follow the … nutritional guidelines in our policy,” Brown said. He estimates meals cost about $2 a day per inmate. > > Yuma County jail meals cost 92 cents each, according to a previous interview with YCSO’s Lt. Joseph Lackie. . . . > > In the Maricopa County jail, Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been operating his own “food factory” for approximately 10,000 prisoners since 2005, according to Capt. Paul Chagolla. > > “It has all the state-of-the-art equipment to cook, chill and reheat food for an entire population,” Chagolla said. It also has a bakery to make bread. > He said they make about 30,000 meals a day for 15 cents per meal. Chagolla said they partner with food banks and use inmate labor to keep costs down. > An example of brunch would be a sandwich and fruit. Dinner is a hot meal, such as turkey, ham or meatloaf, Chagolla said. > > “They drink water. We don’t provide sugar drinks or coffee in our jail. Sheriff Arpaio wants to keep inmates as healthy as he can and keep costs down.” > > Chagolla said Arpaio has a favorite quote to explain the jail’s food: “The food’s not all that good … It’s not all that tasty. They’re probably too weak to riot.” > > On the opposite end of the spectrum, Imperial County jail Capt. Bill Willard told The Sun, “We have outstanding food here in our jail.” > > He said they use in-house cooks and provide two hot meals a day and a sack lunch. > > An example of breakfast is french toast, sausage, hard-boiled eggs, fruit, toast and coffee. Dinner foods include fried chicken, cheese enchiladas with rice and beans, pork chops, soups and cheeseburgers. He said the average cost is $1.65 per meal. > > In La Paz County, an in-house kitchen staff of five cooks makes a dietician-qualified diet with a five-week rotation of meals, according to jail commander Don Davis. > > An example of breakfast is eggs, hashbrowns, milk, coffee and fruit. Lunch may be fish sandwiches, rice, fruit, ice tea or water. Dinner could be tacos, beans, cake, iced tea or water, Davis said. > > He said breakfast costs $1.09 to $1.22, lunch is $1.07 to $1.46 and dinner is $1.42 to $1.94. He said they buy products in bulk and use inmate workers to help with food preparation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-arapaio-sentient-pustule/565376.md?page=3)