What Readers Say!

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An Amazing True Story

Daniel Horne has written a book that absolutely everyone in the country should read. He tells about his experiences in the Maricopa County, Arizona jail system. Sheriff Joe's love of the media could propel this book to great heights. However, it's the County Attorney (Andrew Thomas) that everyone living in Maricopa County (or even thinking of visiting) should know about. His manipulation of the laws of the state are truly amazing and horrifying at the same time. Until the political climate of Arizona takes a dramatic change for the better, anyone considering relocating to Arizona needs to do their homework.

As host of AuthorsWebTV.com, I've had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing Daniel. How this mild-mannered gentleman survived the intolerable conditions and abuse, as offered in this book, is truly amazing. --Linda Thompson

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Captivating Read

Frightening story of the author's experience with the justice system and his inabilty to receive a fair trial. He goes on to detail the horrors of Sheriff Joe's Tent City.

The book makes one re-elvauate their own stereotypes of people who end up in jail and the people who put them there. --Lele Roulant

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So true it gives you chills

This book is amazing!!! I couldn't put it down, but the human body needs sleep. Dan was most gracious to mention me in his book as "Soldier". When things like this happen to you in life you think.. "I will just do it and be done", but Dan was able to capture the REAL essence of it, and make you realize it's more powerful and corrupt than what you see with the naked eye. I have been to war, and seen many scary things! But, nothing has scared me more than this book. It makes you realize how important life, love, family, and friend's are in one's life because it can be taken away in a heart beat! —David S. Naughton

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Excellent!

Excellent book.
Tells the truth about what's going on in Maricopa County Arizona with a un-justice system gone wild.
Where justice is not about the truth, only about warehousing people and calling them criminals for minor offenses.
Come to Arizona on vacation, leave on probation, be returned for a violation and prison. — James Cozzolino

 

Is Andrew Thomas is the most dangerous man in Arizona? Some say yes!

 

Would you hire this man to manage a $98 million budget and 500 employees?

1991, Graduated from college
3 years working at a local law firm
1 year working as an assistant to the state Attorney General's office*
3 years working in the Department of Corrections as Chief Counsel*
1 year working in the Maricopa County Attorney's Office
2000, elected Maricopa County Attorney, managing 350 other attorneys in the 4th largest county in America

* The bio is vague about how long Thomas held each of these two positions.

Former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley asks voters to vote against Thomas.

When I saw the commercial my jaw dropped open. A staunch conservative Republican asking Maricopa County voters to vote for the Democratic challenger rather than the Republican incumbent. I’ve never seen anything like it. As I sat there looking that the former Maricopa County Attorney telling me not to vote for the existing Maricopa County Attorney, I heard something I seldom hear from politicians—the truth. Mr. Romley was speaking out against a multitude of abuses too large to innumerate in one commercial. To get his point across he had to take the old fashioned route of “standing by his principles” and doing the right thing.

I had never been a fan of Mr. Romley, but I had to admit a man who stood by his convictions was a sight to be admired. My experience of Andrew Thomas was everything that Mr. Romley said and more. I tell people that the people in Joe Arpaio’s jails are county residents who survived Andrew Thomas only to be preyed upon by Joe Arpaio. Both are clearly dangerous men to the residents of this county, but Thomas is head and shoulders above Arpaio when it comes to the disaster he creates. The true victims of Maricopa County’s County Attorney are silence behind prison walls for a number of years, but someday they will be able to speak of the abuses they endured—at least those that survive might be able to.

Who are the winners in Andrew Thomas' program of mass incarceration?

Some of Maricopa County's politicians prosper by cannibalizing county residents into the fire's of Justice for personal gain. The book shows how they create the havoc they purport to protect you from, and then leverage it in media sound bites to get your vote.

It's all about making Arizona the First Prison State.

Senate Bill SB1028 has one sponsor, State Senator Russell Pierce. Buried in the bill is this provision:

Sec. 34 Prison facilities; lease-purchase agreement

Not later than May 1, 2010, in consultation with the state department of corrections, the department of administration shall enter into a lease-purchase finance agreement. The agreement shall:


1. Result in net available proceeds of $495,000,000 in the state general fund
   by May 1, 2010.
   
   
2. Be for a fixed term of 20 years.
   
   
3. Require the initial lease-purchase payment to be in fiscal year.

If you are not familiar with For-profit prisons, you may think this is a good thing, but I’m going to show you why it is an absolute disaster for the residents of Arizona.

The $495 million is funny money. It goes into the state general fund now, and then goes right back out again in bed rent for each bed in our over-crowed prison system (the one Andrew Thomas recently packed with thousands of new bodies) that we sold to them. When the money is gone, then the state’s general fund will keep shelling out millions that will be transferred out of Arizona to the for-profit corporation’s shareholders.

For-profit prisons are notorious for moving prisoners between states to fill up empty beds.

Laws exist regulating the inter-state transport of livestock, but there are no laws regulating the the transport of human chattel. All that is needed is for some of Arizona's wealthy landowners sell large tracks of desert to for-profit corporations at a handsome profit. If those same landholders are also own development companies, they can then bid on a lucrative construction contract to build the new prisons to handle not only our state’s overcrowded prison population, but other state's prisoners too. There are local jobs in that, so it’s a good thing right? No.

Wages in Arizona are dirt cheap, and dirt cheap is something the for-profits are expert at.

The landowners/developers (who may be, or own, state politicians) will encourage the building of many prisons. Its profitable, it brings jobs to the state, languishing parts of our economy is booming for the short-term. Everybody’s happy, or are they?

Arizona is now officially America’s First Prison State.

State Senator Russell Pierce sponsored the for-profit prison bill alone. Why? Because the nation has resisted the ideal of preying on the populous for a profit. But Senator Pierce walks a different pay. He wanted to be the first to cave into the for-profit mentality nationally as a strategy to stave off bankruptcy.

Tourism is down. The team of Thomas, and Pierce, and Arpaio mean to keep it that way.

Who wants to travel to a prison state? But, local retail sales are up, so who cares. Then, the employee turnover that for-profits are also notorious for having begins to surface. Minimum wage guards tell stories of low morale and horrid conditions at the new prisons. Newspapers begin to pick up stories that violent prisoners shipped to Arizona from other states are cohabitating with their non-violent counterparts. (Note: This isn’t fiction, this is what is happening in other towns where for-profit prisons exist today.)

Construction will slow when the new prison building boom subsides

After five or six years, unemployment begins to rise to historic highs. Local crime begins to rise to historic highs as well. Demands for unemployment benefits, welfare, and Medicaid consume a shrinking tax base. Then a violent prisoner escapes from the minimal security prison, kills some local residents, and the public is up on arms. The for-profit owners shrug, its happened a dozen times before. What are the locals going to do, they have sold their souls to the devil and the for-profits know it. “If you want us to leave, we’ll leave,” says the for-profit Executive. “But when we go, we will leave behind all our employees and a decimated economy too. After your economy collapses, we’ll return and start up where we left off for pennies on the dollar.”

I think that Rick Romley can see the writing on the wall.

I believe that Rick Romley actually cares about the residents of Maricopa County more than he cares about party affiliation. While I disagree with Rick Romley’s policies as a prosecutor, by God, I have to respect his integrity as a man — better yet as an American who lost his legs defending my right to speak my disagreement with him.

If Andrew Thomas isn’t in bed with the for-profit prisons, then his portrait must hang on their boardroom wall.

After all, Andrew Thomas is the best thing to happen to the for-profit jailers anywhere in the United States, and I believe that makes a decorated Marine like Rick Romley sick to his stomach. But then, I guess we’d have to ask Andrew Thomas’ lunch buddy, Senator Russell Pierce, to know for sure.