Cruel and Unusual?

Or just business as usual for Arizona?

Having worked with clients in prison, I would have thought that maintaining family ties would be a good thing, and keeping prisoners incommunicado a bad thing.

Apparently Arizona is making a different choice.

For the Arizona Department of Corrections, crime has finally started to pay.

New legislation allows the department to impose a $25 fee on adults who wish to visit inmates at any of the 15 prison complexes that house state prisoners. The one-time “background check fee” for visitors, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, has angered prisoner advocacy groups and family members of inmates, who in many cases already shoulder the expense of traveling long distances to the remote areas where many prisons are located.

Are we sure they haven't elected Sheriff Joe governor yet?