President Donald Trump announced to pardon Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio last week. There has been a lot of backlash as a result of this decision from both sides of the isle. Arpaio has always been an outspoken Trump surrogate which might explain the reason for this pardon. We know for sure it's not because he "kept Arizona safe," as the President noted in the tweet announcing his decision.
Arpaio faces six months in jail for illegally racially profiling, searching and detaining Hispanic and Latino Americans suspected of residing in the country without documentation; he waged a war on illegal immigration and made it the forefront of his agenda. Joe Arpaio was notoriously dubbed as America's Toughest Sheriff, after the harsh conditions he forced upon his inmates. Of these conditions included forcing inmates to pay for their meals (despite already serving them "the cheapest meals in the US"), establishing an exclusively outdoor jail called Tent City, making inmates wear pink underwear and essentially starving them with two, low calorie, vegetarian meals per day in an attempt to cut costs. Arpaio even introduced a diet of only bread and water for 30 days for inmates as punishment for acts deemed unpatriotic.
Joe Arpaio treats his inmates by dehumanizing them. These methods are immoral, unethical and are not effective if the goal is to help reintegrate the people under his watch back into society, which is what your goal should be a Sheriff. Continually bashing down, undermining, and punishing your inmates are not going to rehabilitate them. Joe Arpaio proved by grossly abusing the power he had that he was not worthy of holding a position of such power. Thankfully Arpaio lost his bid for reelection in 2016. However, he served as Maricopa County's Sheriff for 24 years since 1993.
This pardon lacks basic common sense. Arpaio is only facing up to six months, he doesn't even fit the minimum serving requirement to be pardoned! Convicting Arpaio is one thing the justice system has done right; even though, arguably, more justice could have been served. As for Donald Trump, he doesn't care about the law; he's shown this time and time again with his unpredictable, brash behavior coupled with the violations of sometimes simple, preliminary rules and regulations entrenched in the law.
This comes from someone who called himself the "law and order candidate" throughout his campaign. This is a man who has proven to care more about pandering to his racist, hateful base than doing what's right by securing innocent Americans' civil liberties. This pardon is disgraceful and is another slap in the face to minorities by the Trump administration.
