Go to jail, get English lessons - More Sheriff Joe Arpaio madness

Frankly, I never understood why the "Good People of Maricopa County" puts up with this megalomaniacal fascist's bullshit.
Must be too much time under the sun

If they plan to stay here, and they want to improve their chances of getting good jobs, knowing English would be a big help.

Too bad the schools don't have enough money to offer more English lessons.

Joseph M. Arpaio (born June 14, 1932 in Springfield, Massachusetts) is a law enforcement officer who is notable as the sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona. He has been called "America's toughest sheriff." He has a large number of vocal supporters for his toughness on crime and criminals, but many civil libertarians denounce him as a bully and a tyrant for his policies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio


What Amnesty Intl. thinks of the guy

http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engAMR510511997?open&of=eng-2am

Fascist is being generous

The inmate population seems disproportionate to me to the general population demographic. Maybe this is why he gets away with it. If he locked up more white guys, maybe then they'd take notice.

The pink underwear, it's not as if jail isn't humiliating enough without some swine going out of their way to make it even more so. That is what has always made me freak out over military prisons, especially the brigs with Marines in charge. I have always understood Portsmouth Naval Prison was a special place, deserving of it's own rung of hell...

They should be thankful... Some people have to shell out hundreds of dollars to take English courses...

That covers English as a second language, and the full spectrum of basic government.

If you think anyone learns anything in 10 hours with that range of material, you've never taight a class in your life. The purpose is not to teach anything. It is to get idiots outside of the jail to pump their fists in weirdo political righteousness, and to humiliate the inmates. There is absolutely no pedagogical benefit to any of this.

remember much of it, let alone can speak it.

This is a free country after all.

Maybe most of them will be smart enough to take it.

Or, maybe they will take over one day and you'll have to learn Spanish!
:scared:
:scared:

Why the hell do they need to learn "God Bless America"? Why not the NATIONAL FUCKING ANTHEM? Sigh.

Plus, why the hell does that foreign language joke keep rattling around in my head? You know, the one that goes... what do you call someone who speaks two languages?.....

I think he's actually doing something good here. People in jail usually just learn how to be better criminals. In this case they might actually learn something that will help them when they get out. They might know more about how the government works than the general population!

even stated that prison is to be punished and nothing else. But in the spirit of a broken clock being right twice a day, he probably is accidentally doing some good for a change if he's sending in real teachers. If it's some bozos who can't speak Spanish and expect the inmates to understand them, then it seems a set-up for abuse to me.

I'm thinking back to an article I read in our Sunday paper this weekend about the growing Latino population in our state. Apparently the Latino population doesn't vote at any thing close to the rate that the rest of the state does. The reasons given were that many of the immigrants did not understand our system of goverment. Hard to be a voting force if you don't understand how a bill becomes law...

Of course, he's still a fascist asshole.

they become citizens. Many do understand that you know.

the eligible voters in the Latino population in our state. Here is a link to the article from Sunday: http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news/1161402938278790.xml?oregonian?lcfp&coll=7

When you pay a congressman.

system of government????????

I thought some sort of classes and test were mandatory for becoming a citizen.....

Other than that, I dunno.

Not knowing english makes the chances of them getting a job and staying out of jail even less likely. There should be free ESL language classes in every community and I think you should be required to take them if you come to live and work here. Not all places you need to deal with in the real world have someone who speaks english.

About 2/3 of the calls I get every day are immigrants. Most people work through the questions with me, even if it is a struggle sometimes. We always manage to get through it. These are people from all nationalities. They might speak broken english, but at least they try. At least once a day I get someone asking for someone who speaks Spanish. Unfortunately it is a very small office with no one who speaks spanish. Most struggle through the conversation, but probably once a week I have someone hang up because they cannot communicate. It has to be frustrating for them not to know the language.

I fail to see how requiring this is wrong or somehow harms inmates. They ought to have to take GED classes if they haven't graduated also. An education can go a long way to breaking the cycle of crime and poverty.

you cant learn English in 2 weeks for 2 hours a day....

This is nothing but a photo op.... I'd applaud it if it were a real curriculum. But these folks wont leave knowing how to do a tax return in English or ask about the contents of a lease never mind Shakespeare.

For stating the obvious. Other people seem to think that the inmates will come out of their two-week incursion into a foreign language course reciting Shakespeare and writing flawless memoranda. Meanwhile, most of these same people took THREE YEARS or more of a foreign language in high school and can maybe count to sixty in it and vaguely remember the seasons.

What a load of fucking shite.

And the people who keep putting him back in office never figures this stuff out

Teach people something they can get a job with.

And numbers have their own language.

If they're in prison in France, I'd suggest they learn French!

like everything else he does. I've seen one of his chain gangs in action, and they're a joke. The chains on their ankles are nothing but a single chain padlocked around one ankle. If an inmate was really determined to escape, they could get it off without too much effort. They're mostly short timers doing time for petty offenses and wouldn't escape even if they weren't chained up. Arpaio just does it to show how "tough" on crime he is.

Although in theory English classes would be a good idea, as would any form of education for an inmate, this is more about show than about actually teaching them English. The patriotic bluster behind it should be a dead giveaway to anyone.

It seems like everytime this asshole fades a little from the news, he pulls some stunt like this to keep himself in the spotlight. Whether it's pink underwear, tent city jails, black and white prison uniforms, chain gangs, buying a .50 caliber machine gun to fight terrorism (yes, this clown really did this), putting juveniles on chain gangs, painting American flags inside his jail cells, or now this crap, it's all about attention. Arpaio is a pathetic little whore.

it in the US.

This is hysteria at its finest. Is there a word for fear of foreign languages?

on an English vocabulary and American civics test.