By 1992, Arpaio was ready to return to his law enforcement roots and decided to run for Maricopa County Sheriff in Arizona. He successfully defeated the incumbent who was embroiled in controversy. Within two years, Arpaio started winning the national spotlight for his techniques. He mobilized a 2,200-member volunteer posse, which included lawyers, doctors, politicians, corporate executives and retirees, to patrol for prostitutes and mall crime. His “get tough” policies for his county’s jails holding up to 10,000 inmates included bans on smoking, coffee and movies. One of his most notable moves as sheriff was erecting the nation’s largest tent city jail for some of his inmates surrounded by a wire fence. He also started the first-ever female and juvenile chain gangs in the United States. “I’ve got a method to my madness of publicity; I want to send a message to the bad guys,” he said in a Los Angeles Times front-page story. “I want them to know that it is so bad in my jail that they won’t want to commit crimes here,” he added.
Arpaio is credited with establishing several other unique programs under his leadership.
When soldiers began returning home he placed veterans at the front of his recruitment list, hiring over 150 individuals with military backgrounds. A special housing unit in his jail was also established which was only for veteran convicts with special programs to assist with PTSD and other related issues.
He began “HARD KNOCKS HIGH,” allowing juvenile offenders to continue their education while being incarcerated. He also implemented a drug treatment/rehabilitation program in his jails.
The Sheriff began an animal cruelty unit, locking up offenders while simultaneously rescuing animals from abuse and neglect. He then gave select inmates an opportunity to care for the animals.
His administration is credited with building two new jails, a sheriff’s academy, food factory, firearms range and a headquarters equipped with a state-of-the-art 911 communications center.
In one of his most famously questioned directives, The Sheriff in 1995 began the pink underwear program. When he learned that inmates were stealing jailhouse white boxers, he had all their underwear dyed pink for better inventory control. The underwear contrasted nicely with the black and white striped uniforms that had been introduced over 20 years earlier. As a result, the U.S. Justice Department began investigating jail conditions under Arpaio’s watch.
By 1996, polls were indicating that Arpaio, who was running for the first of his many reelections, was the most popular elected official in the State of Arizona. He then began to win the attention of national Republicans, including presidential candidate Bob Dole, who visited the tent city jail and praised it. “This idea may spread in other sections of the country,” Dole said. “I talked to one of the inmates who said, ‘I don’t want to come back here. I’ve learned my lesson.’” Two months later, hundreds of inmates rioted in protest of the conditions at the camp. One year afterward, the Justice Department sued Maricopa County, alleging the use of excessive force and mistreatment at the jail, but the suit was later dropped.
Despite the favorable polls, Arpaio decided not to run for governor of Arizona in 2002, saying, “I just want to go out into the sunset as a law enforcement officer.”
Four years later, with help from his posse of citizens, Arpaio used a state human-trafficking law to start going after smugglers bringing immigrants into Arizona illegally — and also to arrest the immigrants. A Mexican citizen visiting the U.S. legally sued Arpaio after he was detained. The litigation would eventually become a class-action lawsuit, one of several legal actions to be taken against Arpaio in the following years. Following a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, a federal judge ruled that the conditions in Arpaio’s jail were unconstitutional.
