And then there's the food. My first day at Tent City, I joined Sheriff Arpaio as he gave a guided tour of Tent City to a group of curious elderly folks bussed in from southern Arizona. As we weaved our way through tents and inmates, the Sheriff declared (to sustained applause, by the way) that he had been able to cut the cost of feeding one inmate down from 90 cents to 75 cents a day; it costs over a dollar a day to feed one of his K9s. Inmates exists on green-ish bologna, no coffee and no hot lunches.

Certainly there are plenty of people - many of them at the American Civil Liberties Union - that contend the conditions within Tent City are inhumane, but I got a different feeling from the community - and surprisingly from the inmates confined in the jail system.

The heart of Tent City - and what makes it notorious - is the Chain Gang. Sheriff Joe makes sure the community gets an eyeful of the Chain Gang, putting the inmates on display at every community function as a warning to would be rule-breakers. Despite legal challenges and the scrutiny of public interest groups, the voters of Maricopa County keep Tent City and the chain gang in business.

What I didn't know is that the Chain Gang is elite. Not just any old inmate gets to be chained together in public, supervised by an officer wielding a high-powered rifle. No. You have to be special. You have to wait your turn, be selected, and pass muster that includes an entire small-print list of rules. There is a bed inspection every morning, and if your cell, uniform and boots aren't perfect, you don't go out to work.

I pulled myself out of bed one morning at 4am to go out with the women's chain gang - the only female chain gang in the world, I was told. When I arrived at the jail, the women were fully dressed, standing at attention and awaiting inspection before the sun even rose. Chain Gang veterans called roll call, and left boots were chained to left boots. They marched to the van calling out in cadence: "We are the Chain Gang!" (Stomp. Rattle) "The world's only lady chain gain." (Stomp. Rattle) They said it with enough pride I had to ask about it.

The veterans spoke first. They'd earned their stripes as an ordinary Chain Gang member and were now given the responsibility of teaching the newbies. This was the most responsibility they'd known in their lives, they said, and it made them feel capable. I got some head nods on that. The inmates had pride in their work. And this was the stunner - these women said they were ok with their treatment, the tents, the desert heat, the sour milk and bad bologna. "If it were easy here, I might not work so hard when I get out to never, ever come back here," one inmate told me.

Maybe some people need a nightmare to wake up.