'Nation's toughest sheriff' adds Web cam to jail

PHOENIX (AP) -- Anyone who wants a peek behind the walls of the Maricopa County Jail can do so by way of the Internet starting next week.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the man dubbed the "nation's toughest," is installing two video cameras that will show hundreds of inmates booked each day.

"It'll be educational," Arpaio said. "It'll be a deterrent. Maybe those guys who get busted on Van Buren Street (for soliciting prostitutes) can wave to their wives."

Not everyone is amused.

"Sheriff Joe often seems to forget that a lot of people in his care haven't been convicted of a crime," said Eleanor Eisenberg, executive director of the Arizona Civil Liberties Union. "Putting them on the Internet for all the world to see is an invasion of privacy that is not warranted."

Online viewers will be warned that anything can happen as the cameras follow inmates through parts of the Madison Street Jail.

Arpaio has gained national attention for his methods. He has housed prisoners in sweltering tents, dressed them in pink underwear and dispatched chain gangs in old-style striped uniforms to cut weeds and paint curbs. He has banned coffee, R-rated movies and -- in a move upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court -- nude magazines.

His title as "America's toughest sheriff" came from a tabloid magazine after his 1992 election. But his jails have also been the subject of investigations into alleged brutality.

The jailhouse death of inmate Scott Norberg in a restraint chair in 1996 ended in with Norberg's family settling a wrongful death suit against Maricopa County for $8 million.

"Everybody says we killed Norberg," Arpaio said. "I'm getting tired of all these allegations. Now everybody can see."

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Park Service squelches Web cams at U.S. parks
July 7, 2000
Serve up webcam images without a PC
July 4, 2000

Maricopa County Sheriff's Office

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.