Prisoners, Chain Gangs and Hollywood

Striped shirts (and pants) of a completely different order: American prison uniforms.

These suits were standard issue for US prisoners and chain gangs in the first half of the last century and made immortal by Hollywood. Pictured here is Charlie Chaplin, but also Laurel and Hardy were wholesale users of this stripey combination. Below a picture of a North Carolina chain gang (not by Hollywood).

One could easily think these humiliating outfits are a thing of the past, but not in Arizona's Maricopa County, where a mad elected(!) sheriff reinstated the stripes ánd chain gangs.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio is proud of his work and the controversy he causes. The fact that there are people like Joe Arpaio doesn't surprise me; that there are thousands of people who choose someone like him to be there law-enforcer does.

Kete