Tent City being shut down. There's a new sheriff in town. Arizona [View all]
Maricopa County’s new sheriff announced Tuesday that he’s shutting down a complex of jail tents that helped make his predecessor, Joe Arpaio, a national law enforcement figure.
Paul Penzone said at a news conference that the nearly 24-year-old Tent City complex will be closing in 45 to 60 days.
Arpaio opened the complex in August 1993 as a way of easing jail overcrowding. The barbed-wire-surrounded compound was part of a broader campaign by Arpaio to enact get-tough measures in his jails, such as banning cigarettes, creating inmate chain gangs and dressing them in old-time striped prison uniforms.
Closing Tent City complex would undo a critical piece of Arpaio’s six-term political legacy. Penzone, who defeated the 84-year-old Arpaio in November, is already phasing out his predecessor’s practice of making inmates wear pink underwear.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/arizona-sheriff-to-shut-down-famed-tent-city-jails-complex/2017/04/04/45d4836c-1980-11e7-8598-9a99da559f9e_story.html?utm_term=.b49708c2ca0c
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