Maricopa County Sheriff's Office

Took a tour of Tent City Jail, and Sheriff Joe and his staff were fantastic!

His approach to crime and punishment is something we need back in Ohio. I write my local officials about opening tents and barracks for jails, and I get the same ole same ole...seems all they want to do is build $200M jails that only help out the major developers...see, county corruption back home has made it impossible to do anything good for the community, like Joe's done here in Maricopa.

For county jail offenders, this truly is as good as it gets.

What is the point of a Veterans court if the MCSO is more concerned about posting a forever mugshot on the internet before a verdict is made?
Sadly, my combat recovered friend is humiliated over & over again by a mugshot he cannot get off the Internet because MCSO posted a mugshot prematurely. His family, platoon mates, & employers have seen this very personal time he was going through PTSD treatment after being in the battle at Kandahar & OIF. The veterans court was supportive & did help him. He took responsibility for breaking the $100 item, but he is stuck with an online mugshot for a bad moment some one believed law enforcement could help him.
I think too many law enforcement agencies just create more distrust with civilians when they resort to humiliation tactics.
Are their humane innovative minds in this profession?

I was at the Post Office at 35th Ave and Washington St, who handles mail for the MCSO Jails located in 85009, and it was just astonishing to see all of the mail being RTS and for some of the most ridiculous reasons... "NO HARD BACKS ALLOWED" or my personal reason, "NO LABELS OR STICKERS."

I mailed a postcard to an inmate on 01/02/2019. The postcard was returned to me on 01/19/2019 because the address was typed on a sticky label (See second picture). I just wonder why it took 17 days to make the round trip locally when I sent a Christmas card to someone in Virginia Beach, VA to someone who apparently moved. It made it there and back in way less time.

So, the snail's pace process with ret'd mail cannot be entirely the fault of the USPS because of what happened with the Christmas card. So, I place most, if not all, of the blame on the MCSO.

I have heard stories of how the MCSO and the guards THINK they're superior and how horribly inmates are treated. Guards and other staff members poking fun of the inmates, rude to visitors, and just pure lazy. I have experienced the latter two when trying to talk to the guard working the front desk at Estrella when trying to get answers regarding an inmate. Instead of helping me, she "passed the buck" and "flagged" my name for holding her accountable and give her a hard time. May be it was partly my fault for not showing her my POA! Regardless, do your job or GTFO!

It's time for Paul Penzone and his boss (does he have one) to play, "UNDERCOVER BOSS!

Its really a 0 but this makes you pick something.if you really want to complicate a bad situation just call the police there only going to ask a million questions and not do anything and when you ask for a copy of the report they want money lol as if you're taxes dont pay them enough for what they do my husband and i regret the day his company moved us here we are already so looking forward to the day he can retire so we can get out of this back wood place neither one of us have ever seen anything like here and are eagerly waiting for the day its in our rear view mirror.

Drivers on the 10 BEWARE!

My experience involves a very dangerous and unfair policing tactic that was used to ticket drivers.

My boyfriend and I were driving on the 10 in the right lane with traffic both in front and behind us, as well as to the left of us. There were two patrol cars on the side of the road with their emergency vehicle lights on. We were unable to move over to the left lane due to the traffic next to us and were pulled over.

We sat and waited for this officer to write us up for not switching to the left lane on a VERY busy and dangerously hot night, for what seemed like 45 minutes. The officer was not at all accommodating to the fact that there was clearly traffic which did not allow us to switch lanes. We were not speeding, both seat-belted, car had no lights out, we had not broken the law. Maddening as well were not only the cars passing us from the RIGHT LANE but the cars speeding by so fast I felt at times we would get sucked onto the highway from the force. It was so hot that night that we both sweated through our shirts. Plus, it seemed like a coarse amount of time to have people wait on the side of a potentially hazardous fast-moving roadway. It was late in the night on a holiday weekend. Seemed precarious and trivial.

After driving off, we saw two other separate officers pulled over with their emergency vehicle lights on in the emergency lane BY THEMSELVES (ie they were not assisting any other vehicles nor pulled over any other vehicles, they were simply alone in the emergency shoulder with their emergency lights on). It became very clear that this repugnant scheme was not just an off-chance, bad luck encounter for us, but actually a ploy by this police team to ticket drivers. It was obvious that we were trapped into this fraudulent situation only to be left with a HUGE fine and driving school.

This is lawless, unprofessional and NOT going unnoticed. This is a shameful event that should be a singular anomaly, however, it clearly is not. The next time I drive down the 10 through Maricopa County, I expect to see diligent police officers doing their duty of protecting and serving, NOT playing part of duplicitous misconduct to innocent people.

*I have filed complaints to the AZ Dept of Public Safety as well as directly with Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. I'll update this review if/when I hear back from them.

Checked out their MASH Unit--I was asked to volunteer a bit of time advising staff who are with the cats, as I'm an accredited cat behaviorist. What I saw: cats without toys, perches, windows, with the toilets still left over from previous human inmates, so kits could disappear down the holes. Cheap, poor food, nothing soft to burrow into, lots of things wrong. When I had the temerity to ask why any (donated) blankets, including the batch I gave, were thrown away (!) because there were no separate washer and dryer, I'd apparently not followed 'the proper chain of command', and was 'fired'. Surreptitiously. In desperation, I'd donated lots of toys, cat urine cleaner, etc. but heaven knows if they were even used. I was happy to investigate donated washer and dryer, even have them plumbed in for free, but the Office didn't want to know.

Although staff informed me that he hadn't the slightest idea what was going on there, that he didn't care, that the whole 'I love animals' thing was PR, I tried to contact Arpaio and was told 'He's too busy for this.'

Heart-rending. Discouraging. Distressing.

Called and spoke to a man named Bruce in records. He was extremely helpful in assisting me locate a past ticket. He said it would take a few minutes to locate and he could call me back if I didn't want to hold. So I said "ok" and hung up the phone uncertain if I actually would be getting a call back. But true to his word he called back 2 minutes later with the ticket and the cost to mail to me. He was also very personable and funny during our call. His customer service is amazing! Thanks Bruce!

Thank you to our law enforcement officers for keeping us safe. Luckily, I've never had a personal run-in with the MCSO, but I appreciate everything they do. Enough can't be said for the people who risk their lives every day to keep our families out of harm's way. Keep up the good work!

A civil servant must first and foremost be 'civil'...Yesterday I visited the Surprise substation to request they telephone the California Highway Patrol to release an accident report to me from a recent serious car accident I had in California. The CHP told me a local police department could verify I was the requester by telephoning them and they would release it. The individual at the Sheriffs office, a middle aged white woman sporting a trinitarian style arm tattoo, was uncivil, cold, condescending, unhelpful and generally rude. She stated she had never heard of such a request. She said she'd speak to her supervisor and left. When she returned she uttered a single word, "No." Her behavior was appalling. She treated me with disdain and condescension from the outset. There is no call for a public servant to treat a member of the community that way. Her 'fascist-like' attitude speaks volumes of the culture of this tax payer funded organization. This public servant is confused...she is NO SERVANT but, rather thinks she's the MASTER. No place for such behavior in a civil society.

Involved in a small accident. Had the pleasure of dealing with the Maricopa Sheriffs office. The deputy just told both of us drivers involved to exchange info. Then he gave us a card with his name and a report no (so I thought) Turns out the deputy did not even write a report. When I called 4 wks later, I was told there was no report only an event entry log. I was wondering why my insurance co said they had not received the report they requested. When I specifically asked the officer about the report at the accident scene, He just smiled and said, Just call the no on the card. Turns out, despite the other guy being wrong in hitting my car, My insurance co had no info to go on. Just a 2 liner from the deputy saying, a collesion had occurred. That's piss poor and unacceptable. I had heard about the Maricopa county Sheriffs office not investigating hundreds of felonies in El Mirage. But I never had any idea the deputies are so poorly trained. They can do better than this. I got my car fixed. But since there is no evidence or rpt by the deputy, the claim had to go to arbitration with the other guys insurance co. All the deputy had to do was write a report. No investigation or anything was done. Never experienced law enforcement doing anything like this before.