After 24 years of Joe Arpaio, how did 7 years of Paul Penzone change the Sheriff's Office?

When Paul Penzone defeated Sheriff Joe Arpaio in 2016, he sought to end a 24-year legacy that left deep roots within one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the country.

"I want to restore that respect, that transparency and that confidence to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office because the men and women in the uniforms there deserve it, and this community deserves it," Penzone said on that election night, his supporters giddy over the victory.

Ultimately, Penzone struggled to uproot the culture built by the sheriff with the flamboyant policies and the hard-line immigration stance.

Penzone didn't satisfy the critics who said he didn't go far enough to protect undocumented people in county jails from deportation or move quickly enough to eradicate bias in traffic stops or address internal affairs complaints. Penzone couldn't meet the criteria to allow the county to escape a federal court monitor overseeing the office's practices, gobbling up millions of taxpayer dollars.

But he eliminated Arpaio's Tent City, pink underwear and black-and-white striped prison garb and cruised to a second term in 2020. He navigated the department through the ups and downs of a pandemic, a fentanyl crisis and staffing issues. And he vowed to protect democracy by providing as many deputies as needed to ensure safety at ballot drop boxes, polling places and election counting facilities.

After nearly seven years as sheriff, Penzone decided not to seek a third term. His last day in office was Friday, a year before the end of his term.

He called his time serving as sheriff "a privilege."

Trying to change an entrenched culture

Penzone is joining Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Arizona to run the insurer's community programs and charitable giving.

He said he was not running away from any challenges, but at the early October news conference announcing his departure, he acknowledged following Arpaio’s years in office was not easy.

“There was a political powerhouse that dominated in ways that were not appropriate, that used the platform of this office to intimidate and to influence, and to just control the landscape to the detriment of the people that we serve,” Penzone said.

By contrast, Penzone said he tried to be a servant who led with humility.

Ron Gomez, a retired Phoenix police officer, said his career in law enforcement exposed him to good and bad leadership practices. He believes Penzone made a good-faith attempt to change the Sheriff's Office for the better.

"I saw a strong effort," Gomez said. "I felt like they put forth a very effective community outreach program."

But Gomez, who was also a member of a federal court-appointed Community Advisory Board, said law enforcement agencies are institutions that take years to change.

"The culture at the Sheriff's Office was so bad because of Arpaio's tactics. It was devastating," Gomez said. "So Penzone has struggled to get them back on the right foot. But I can't castigate him for the sins of Arpaio."

Diana Prieto, the office's Hispanic Advisory Board chair, said there was simply no comparison between Penzone and Arpaio.

She says the Sheriff's Office has tried to use more platforms, like social media, to connect with the Hispanic community using Spanish.

"I think it shows an effort when you hire people to speak Spanish, and you reach out to them with things like Instagram to communicate with them directly," Prieto said. "I think that speaks volumes."

While she believes the difference in mentality between Arpaio and Penzone is obvious, Prieto said trying to change the culture at the Sheriff's Office has been hard for Penzone.

"There are some personnel that might still carry the old mentality that Arpaio enforced," she said, which she believes is out of Pezone's control. "He can't be there for every traffic stop."

Penzone's first year: Shedding the Arpaio legacy in Sheriff's Office

Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat who was previously Maricopa County recorder, served alongside Penzone as a county official. Fontes praised Penzone for his efforts in a tense election year.

"When a wave of threats of violence, harassment, and intimidation occurred during the 2020 elections, there was no book on how to keep vulnerable election workers and voters safe," Fontes said. "Paul wrote that book, and he has rightfully been recognized across our nation for creating a model on how to protect our critical elections infrastructure while preserving Americans' First Amendment rights to peacefully protest."

Sheriff cites reform efforts, pay improvements

Penzone touted reform measures he implemented, including establishing a "comprehensive auditing system" for tracking department firearms.

He said he "worked to increase the pay scale for the entire organization by no less than 30%."

Ben Fisk, the president of the Maricopa County Law Enforcement Association, which represents detention officers who work in the county jails, said many MCLEA members have served under both Arpaio and Penzone.

He said there was an air of hope among staff that things would change when Penzone was first elected. Fisk said Penzone did change things at the administrative level, but those changes did not trickle down the chain of command.

“When Arpaio left office, morale was pretty bad,” Fisk said. “But Penzone didn’t do enough to improve conditions to make people want to stay.”

Penzone said he had "increased minority hiring by approximately 8%." Penzone also said he had "recreated and built a stronger, more comprehensive, and diverse Cadet Program, now serving the entire county."

Joe Clure, executive director of the Arizona Police Association, which represents Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office detention officers and deputies, said Penzone brought a different attitude to the department.

“Arpaio’s administration was known for controversy and high-profile issues,” Clure said. “Penzone has been less of a lightning rod for those kinds of things.”

Clure said Penzone had also been more open to discussions about improving benefits and conditions for employees.

Recruiting and maintaining staffing has been extremely difficult for many law enforcement agencies, Fisk said.

"Attrition in law enforcement is a nationwide problem," he said.

Police agencies that put their employees first tend to have better luck holding on to them, Fisk said, "but that's not what the officers feel has happened at MCSO."

Cloud of 'Melendres' case remains

Penzone said there is "one cloud still hanging over this office" that stems from Arpaio's tenure: the Melendres v. Arpaio court case, as it was initially called, and the resulting set of federal court orders that require the department to be watched by a court-appointed monitor.

The lawsuit that led to the external monitor began in 2008. Latino drivers sued the Sheriff's Office, alleging they were racially profiled.

Orders stemming from the lawsuit require the Sheriff's Office to devote significant resources to investigating and responding to internal affairs complaints, such as allegations of wrongdoing by deputies.

Penzone said he was "proud to say we reduced lawsuits and liability to the county and our taxpayers."

But the costs of the Melendres litigation, much of which is beyond Penzone's direct control, continue to mount.

As of May, the total spent by the county in the racial profiling lawsuit and court-mandated oversight of the Sheriff's Office was $253 million. It has grown since.

Despite the ongoing oversight process, Penzone has repeatedly stated that the issues that brought about a federal monitor, like racial profiling, no longer occur in the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

Victoria Lopez, director of program and strategy at the ACLU of Arizona, said while there may have been changes at MCSO over the past several years, the agency still fails to comply with court orders.

“Over the course of the last year, there has been a finding of contempt against the sheriff and the agency because of backlogs in internal affairs investigations,” she said. “There have also been continuing findings of racial bias in traffic stop reports.”

Data from the monitoring process shows traffic stops conducted by MCSO are longer for people of color.

“We can't ignore the fact that there are still these issues that remain, that MCSO has not adequately addressed,” Lopez said.

Penzone railed against the continued monitoring in the news conference where he announced his departure, saying, “I’ll be damned if I do three terms under federal court oversight for a debt I never incurred.”

But Lopez said the issues addressed in the litigation are critically important constitutional issues for residents of Maricopa County.

“The reason there's a monitor in place here is because the constitutional violations that were brought forward in this litigation and by community members over the course of many, many years — those violations were long-standing, they were severe and they were deep. Deeply rooted in the agency,” Lopez said.

Critics: 'He had this giant ego'

Criminal defense and immigration attorney Ray A. Ybarra Maldonado said instead of complaining about the federal monitor, Penzone should have been working more closely with them.

“He had this giant ego and acted like he could do everything himself,” Ybarra Maldonado said. “What he should have been doing from day one is using those individuals as a resource to improve services for Maricopa County.”

Maldonado has represented people incarcerated in the county jails since Arpaio was in office.

“There hasn't been major change that we've seen from an attorney's perspective who represents people who are detained or profiled by the Sheriff's Department,” Ybarra Maldonado said. “Having a Democrat in the office didn’t change any outcomes as far as I’m concerned.”

Lingering frustration over 'ICE holds'

Penzone has faced consistent criticism for not ending the office’s cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the jails.

Shortly after taking office, Penzone stopped using "courtesy holds," the practice of detaining in Maricopa County jails people who would otherwise be released but had been flagged for potential immigration violations. Under Arpaio, these people would be held so that federal authorities might pick them up. Penzone ended the practice, saying it might not be legal and brought a threat of litigation against the county.

But ICE continued to have a presence in the county's jails under Penzone, angering immigrant rights activists who worked to get him elected. Penzone allowed ICE to continue screening people in county jails for potential immigration violations.

ICE officials then could detain people it believed to be deportable as they were released from county custody. That process was legal and a matter of public safety, Penzone said in 2020 as his record was being scrutinized during his reelection bid.

The continued presence of ICE in the jails was tearing apart families and harming MCSO’s reputation, said Ybarra Maldonado.

“It's impossible to build communities and impossible to have a unified county when we're treating people differently,” Ybarra Maldonado said.

U.S. citizens have a chance to reintegrate into the community after being held in county jail, whereas an undocumented person risks deportation, he said.

“So, we’re having children come home and mom or dad not be there because the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office continues to allow ICE inside of the jails," Ybarra Maldonado said.

Tent City: 'All the things that are wrong about incarceration'

Perhaps the most tangible and symbolic change between administrations was Penzone’s decision to dismantle Arpaio’s infamous Tent City jail.

“It was ridiculous,” Penzone said during the October news conference where he announced his decision to leave office. “It represented all the things that are wrong about incarceration and law enforcement.”

In addition to closing Tent City in 2017, Penzone’s administration closed the Durango Jail in 2020 and oversaw the construction of a new intake, transfer and release facility.

The COVID-19 pandemic ravaged incarcerated people in the Maricopa County jails and Penzone’s administration also saw a rise in fentanyl overdoses, leading to serious injury and death.

In response, Penzone sought funding for and purchased body scanning equipment to screen employees, who are often a vector for smuggling drugs into jails and prisons.

Fisk, the president of the union representing detention officers who work in the county jails, said that despite his criticisms of Penzone’s administration, Penzone should be given credit for overseeing the department during incredibly challenging circumstances.

“Even in the best of times, being sheriff of Maricopa County is hard,” he said.

What’s next for the Sheriff’s Office?

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors accepted Penzone's resignation Jan. 10 and is now accepting letters of interest from people who want to finish his term.

Chief Deputy Sheriff Russ Skinner will continue to serve in his current capacity, but he will have the powers of the sheriff until an appointment is made, according to the supervisors.

Ybarra Maldonado said the next sheriff should be someone “who is really willing to get in there, do the hard work, have the tough conversations and get results.”

“We need someone in there who is going to really take a look at the entire office and figure out, 'How do we get rid of these human rights abuses in our jails? How do we get rid of the racial profiling on the streets? And how do we get ICE out of our jails so that we can continue to grow as a community from the pains that we've gone through under the anti-immigrant era here in Arizona?'” he said.

Fisk said the general consensus among members of his labor association is that they would like to see the supervisors appoint someone who is not running for sheriff “so that person who's in power can focus on running the agency, providing election security and enabling a smooth transition of power.”

Whoever comes next, Lopez said, it is important for the new sheriff to understand the constitutional obligations of the Sheriff's Office to the people of Maricopa County.

“They should be prioritizing community accountability, and an important place to start is making sure that they can come into compliance with court orders in this case," Lopez said.

Prieto, chair of the office's Hispanic Advisory Board, said she hopes whoever is next will respect the Latino community and build on the progress she believes the Sheriff's Office has made toward treating people with civility.

"I hope they keep moving things forward because falling backward again would be scary," Prieto said.

Asked if he had any advice for his successor, Penzone said at the October news conference announcing his early departure that the next sheriff should “stay the course.”

“No matter what the obstacle, no matter what the challenge, no matter what the criticism, the men and women in this community and their families are depending on you,” he said.

Have a news tip on the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office? Reach the reporter at jjenkins@arizonarepublic.com or at 812-243-5582. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter @JimmyJenkins.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Penzone leaves Sheriff's Office still fighting Joe Arpaio's legacy