Schadenfreude: the German word for taking pleasure at the misery of others...
Somehow, when the shoe is on the other foot, it's not so much fun, however, such as when a cop gets in trouble or his son, and then the treatment seems something less than humane.
On the other hand, jumping up and down on the other guy, especially when he's down, is a wonderful vote getter.
San Francisco takes a different approach. Here the sheriff, Mike Hennessey, an attorney, heads one of the largest social welfare agencies around, seeking to place prisoners in work programs, drug programs, mental health programs, assisted living programs, etc. Here the emphasis is on trying to stabilize, treat, and keep out of trouble some of the most marginally capable people you'll ever meet.
Years ago, then Gov. Ronald Reagan shut the mental hospitals. People who were unable to care for themselves were turned out onto the streets to beg and sleep. We had a tent city of our own on the lawn in front City Hall that took years to eliminate. Now they sleep under highway viaducts and in parks.
But we have private and public welfare agencies, one with a truck that serves as a medical unit, driving around trying to get some of the disturbed homeless people off the street on cold nights and into shelters. I've learned a term that was new to me: "Double (or dual) diagnosis." It means mentally disturbed and substance addicted. Triple diagnosis includes HIV Positive/AIDS. Some shelters require two or three.
Those are heavy burdens which make it virtually impossible to function in today's society, and we're not creating any fewer of them, are we.
So we leave the problem to the world's ultimate system of social workers to handle: cop, sheriff, defense attorney, jail psych, probation department, district attorney, and sentencing judge.
Today's cops and sheriffs carry an item of equipment on their toolbelts that I didn't see growing up, stuck among the holders for handcuffs and additional rounds: Rubber gloves.
San Francisco, with its seemingly abundant help for the homeless has attracted many from other places. For the price of a bus ticket across the country, the East Coast is able to get rid of a long-term mentally-handicapped homeless person; not that anyone on the East Coast would ever think of doing that, of course.
The other way is Phoenix's, in Maricopa County, Arizona, according to this email which is going around the Web.
Which way makes more sense to you?
------ Forwarded Message
Subject: Sheriff of Maricopa
Way to go Joe !!!!!
Date: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 6:46 PM
Subject: FW: Sheriff of Maricopa County AZ
TO THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH JOE ARPAIO, HE IS THE MARICOPA, ARIZONA COUNTY SHERIFF AND HE KEEPS GETTING ELECTED OVER AND OVER.
THIS IS WHY:
He created the "tent city jail":
He has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the inmates for them.!
He stopped smoking and porno magazines in the jails. Took away their weights. Cut off all but movies.
He started chain gangs so the inmates could do free work on county and city projects.
Then he started chain gangs for women so he wouldn't get sued for discrimination.
He took away cable TV until he found out there was a federal court order
that required cable TV for jails. So he hooked up the cable TV again only
let in the Disney channel and the weather channel.
When asked why the weather channel he replied, so they will know how hot it
is gonna be while they are working on my chain gangs.
He cut off coffee since it has zero nutritional value.
When the inmates complained, he told them,
"This isn't the Ritz/Carlton. If you don't like it, don't come back."
He bought Newt Gingrich's lecture series on videotape that he pipes into the jails.
When asked by a reporter if he had any lecture series by a Democrat, he replied that a democratic lecture series might explain why a lot of the inmates were in his jails in the first place.
With temperatures being even hotter than usual in Phoenix (116 degrees just set a new record), the Associated Press reports:
About 2,000 inmates living in a barbed-wire-surrounded tent encampment at the Maricopa County Jail have been given permission to strip down to their government-issued pink boxer shorts. On Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing boxers were either curled up on their bunk beds or chatted in the tents, which reached 138 degrees inside the week before.
Many were also swathed in wet, pink towels as sweat collected on their chests and dripped down to their pink socks.
"It feels like we are in a furnace," said James Zanzot, an inmate who has lived in the tents for 1 = years. "It's inhumane."
Joe Arpaio, the tough-guy sheriff who created the tent city and long ago
started making his prisoners wear pink, and eat bologna sandwiches, is not
one bit sympathetic. He said Wednesday that he told all of the inmates:
"It's 120 degrees in Iraq and our soldiers are living in tents too, and they have to wear full battle gear, but they didn't commit any crimes, so shut your damned mouths!"
Way to go, Sheriff!
Maybe if all prisons were like this one there would be a lot less crime and/or repeat offenders. Criminals should be punished for their crimes - not live in luxury until it's time for their parole, only to go out and commit another crime so they can get back in to live on taxpayers money and enjoy things taxpayers can't afford to have for themselves.
Sheriff Joe was just reelected Sheriff in Maricopa County, Arizona.
----- End of Forwarded Message