PHOENIX — Seven years after Joe Arpaio was removed as sheriff of Arizona’s most populous county, taxpayers are still footing the bill for a racial discrimination ruling over his immigration crackdowns – and those costs have been rising ever since. then.
The bill for legal and compliance costs in overhauling the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is expected to reach $314 million by mid-summer 2025, including $41 million approved Monday by county officials — the most expensive for Maricopa County taxpayers since the lawsuit was filed in 2007.
Nearly 11 years ago, a federal judge concluded that sheriff’s deputies had racially profiled Hispanics in Arpaio’s traffic patrols that targeted immigrants. Consequently, the judge ordered costly reviews of the agency’s traffic patrol operations and, later, its internal affairs unit.
Taxpayer spending is expected to continue until the sheriff’s office fully complies with the court-ordered changes for three consecutive years. While progress has been made on some fronts, the agency has not yet been deemed fully compliant.
The money spent on reviving the sheriff’s office carries great importance in Arizona law enforcement and political circles.
Earlier this year, heavy compliance costs were cited by critics who said the city of Phoenix should resist filing a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice, which is investigating the city’s police department. In recent weeks, the financial cost has been raised by immigrant rights advocates as they criticized a proposed ballot measure before the Arizona Legislature that would bring local police into immigration enforcement.
Raul Piña, a longtime member of a community advisory board created to help improve trust in the sheriff’s office, criticized the efforts of Arpaio and his immediate successor, Sheriff Paul Penzone, to comply with the court-ordered changes.
But Piña said the agency may finally be turning a corner under the leadership of Penzone’s replacement, Sheriff Russ Skinner. Although he stressed that his comments should not be taken as an endorsement of Skinner, Piña said he was impressed to see the current sheriff openly acknowledge the agency’s failings at a community meeting.
“For the first time I was involved, the sheriff finally said, ‘We own this, we have to fix this,’” Piña said.
Skinner’s office did not respond Monday to a request for comment.
The overwhelming majority of spending goes to hiring staff to help meet the court’s requirements and to a separate team that works on the court’s behalf to monitor the sheriff’s office’s compliance with both reviews.
Arpaio led 20 of the large-scale patrols targeting immigrants from January 2008 to October 2011. Under Arpaio’s leadership, the agency continued immigration enforcement in smaller, more routine traffic patrols until spring 2013.
That led to Arpaio’s conviction for criminal contempt of court for disobeying a judge’s 2011 order to stop patrols. He was spared a possible prison sentence when his misdemeanor conviction was pardoned by then-President Donald Trump in 2017.
Arpaio, who turns 92 next month and is running for mayor of the wealthy suburb where he has long lived, said he has no regrets about launching crackdowns on immigration.
He blamed the judge’s ruling for ongoing costs to taxpayers and said Arizona’s 2005 ban on immigrant smuggling gave him the authority to conduct the patrols. “I did what I was supposed to do,” Arpaio said.
At the time the anti-smuggling law was passed, advocates of stricter immigration enforcement argued that cracking down on the problem would help reduce the financial losses Arizona suffers due to its porous border with Mexico.
In an interview Wednesday, Arpaio sidestepped a question about whether compliance costs from the profiling case would exceed any savings the public might have realized from such enforcement efforts. Instead, he focused on the influx of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years.
“And you’re complaining about me – that I cost taxpayers money?” Arpaio said. “Start adding up what’s happening today.”
Studies of traffic stops conducted since the profiling verdict show that deputies often treat Hispanic and black drivers differently than other drivers, although the reports stop short of saying that Latinos were still being profiled.
Although the profiling case centered on the agency’s traffic patrols, the judge presiding over the case later ordered changes to the sheriff’s internal affairs operation, which critics alleged was biased in its decision-making under Arpaio and protected employees of the sheriff from being held accountable.
Penzone, who served as sheriff from 2017 until his effective resignation in January, was found in civil contempt of court in November 2022 for taking too long to close internal affairs investigations. The internal affairs department has faced criticism for having a huge backlog of open cases. Over the past year, the backlog has been reduced from around 1,900 to 1,600 cases.
The agency’s compliance percentages are at or near 100% in two of the three court orders issued in the case. But its scores in the third court order, issued in November 2022, are more modest.
