Working the Chain Gang
Gain gangs, once an artifact of old west justice, were brought back to Arizona by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in 1995. The Estrella Jail houses what is thought to be the only female chain gang in the U.S.
Inmates worked chained together to clean up public areas and buried the county’s unclaimed dead bodies in the White Tanks Cemetery.
As of 2019, the chain gang was still listed on the Maricopa County web site as a program at the Estrella Jail.
