Meet Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Sheriff of Maricopa County in Phoenix, Arizona. He’s known in the US as ‘America’s Toughest Sheriff’, and boy is he proud of this title.

Having served in the Army he became the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration for Arizona. In 1992 he was elected Sheriff of Maricopa County. Sheriff Arpaio believes that even petty- criminals should be made to pay for their crimes.

Arpaio insists that jails shouldn’t be country clubs and to prove his point he has created America's largest ‘canvas incarceration compound’ or Tent City as it has become known. Over 2,000 convicted inmates serve their sentences under canvas in temperatures that can reach 130 degrees. They have highly restricted access to televisions and smoking; coffee and pornography are completely banned. He spends less money on feeding his inmates than on the dogs that patrol them. And he only spends 20 cents (11p) on the dogs. To add to the humiliation, all inmates have to wear black and white striped uniforms and pink underwear.

Sheriff Arpaio has also created the world’s first female chain gang, who work six days a week cleaning streets, painting over graffiti and burying the poor in the county cemetery.

Arpaio’s hard-line approach to crime and punishment is winning him a lot of fans in Maricopa County with residents giving him an 85% approval rating. Amongst human rights groups he is less popular but as you would expect , he just couldn’t give a damn!