Paul Penzone Promoting Safety To Oust Sheriff Joe Arpaio
Paul Penzone is a Democratic candidate for Maricopa County sheriff who’s hoping that his platform of community safety and accountability is enough to oust infamous anti-immigrant Sheriff Joe Arpaio. While he says he will first focus on community issues, he will not shy away from using his local office to enforce federal immigration laws, and even said some of Arpaio’s current policies might stay intact were he elected.
As a former Phoenix police officer, who also worked with the national crime prevention organization Silent Witness, Penzone stresses community safety and accountability. He told NewsTaco that Arpaio’s tenure has allowed “politics to be the decisive factor” in community policing and listed mismanagement of resources, scandals, lawsuits and a lapse in enforcing crimes against children as reasons he feels he’d be a better sheriff.
“Illegal immigration is a crime, and it needs to be addressed, but how you allocate your resources to do that is critical,” he told NewsTaco, adding, “Crimes against children will always be a priority for me.”
Penzone is formerly an independent who ran as a Democrat when he said the party offered to throw him their support. As a candidate for sheriff, he focuses on the two responsibilities of the office: detention centers and providing safe police staffing in rural areas.
Thus, Penzone’ss main theme seems to be local public safety above all else, especially as it pertains to the way resources are focused within the sheriff’s department. Of course Penzone is alluding to Sheriff Arpaio’s use of his office to highlight the national concern over illegal immigration, his take is that local resources are best used to address local concerns.
However, when illegal immigration-related issues — such as human trafficking or drug dealing — affect the local community, this is a good opportunity to utilize local resources to address this issue, he said. While he doesn’t say he will shut down Arpaio’s tent city or dramatically change any of the department’s current policies with regard to immigrant detainees, Penzone did say, “the allocation of resources should not be so overwhelmingly committed to that, so you fail to carry out other priorities.” This includes not creating conditions in detainment centers that warrant lawsuits over civil rights violations, he said.
“I’m very adamant about, under my direction, I will never stand for an inmate to be released prematurely because we are incapable of housing them. Tent cities would stand — but not in their current condition,” he told NewsTaco, adding that inhumane treatment within the tent city would not be tolerated. He said as sheriff he would collaborate with other agencies as necessary, focus on local crime issues first and hold his office accountable for mistakes.
