Sunday, December 07, 2008

More on the mess Arpaio has made
The Goldwater Institute's Clint Bolick followed up the Institute's damning report on Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his department's "misguided mission," with an excellent column in Sunday's East Valley Tribune. Read it here.

He makes an important point about Arpaio's sweeps:

Public reaction to the report seems divided between people who think the immigration sweeps are a good idea and those who don't. The question is not whether to enforce immigration laws, but how to most effectively do so. The sweeps are extremely costly in terms of manpower, yet yield few arrests of illegal immigrants and do not reduce crime in the areas in which they are conducted. Other police departments focus primarily on policing violent crimes and determine illegal status during booking. So far, the sweeps have led to only about 200 arrests of illegal immigrants, compared to 16,000 through the booking process.

No comments:

Post a Comment