Lee Peters walks away from a supervised inmate work assignment at the Pinal County Adult Detention Center

An inmate walked away from a supervised inmate work assignment at the Pinal County Adult Detention Center in Florence at about 3:25 a.m., Pinal County sheriff's deputies said.

Lee Peters, 18, has been in custody since February and is awaiting sentencing for charges of attempted theft of means of transportation.

Detention staff worked quickly to notify Detention Center command staff and immediately began searching for Peters, deputies said.

The Pinal County Sheriff's Office K-9 Unit was deployed and area agencies, including the Florence Police Department, were notified to help locate and apprehend the inmate.

Arizona Department of Corrections also responded with five search teams, which included four K-9 units and two horses.

At about 6:30 a.m., a Florence police officer noticed two men talking in the area of Third and Park streets in Florence, sheriff's investigators said. He immediately approached the men and spoke briefly with them, deputies said. The officer was able to identify one of the men as Shane Reid, whom the officer knew.

Suspecting the other to be Peters, the officer asked the men for their identification, deputies said. Peters offered a fictitious name, deputies said. A sergeant with the Florence Police Department arrived at the scene and confirmed the man was Peters and took him into custody, sheriff's investigators said.

Reid's involvement in the incident is currently under investigation.

"An administrative review of this incident has already been initiated," said Chief Deputy James Kimble. "At the conclusion of this review, we will make any necessary adjustments in policy or procedure in an effort to ensure this type or similar incident does not occur in the future."

Sheriff Joe takes candy away from kids in jail - what will they do for Halloween?

Juvenile inmates have referred to Sheriff Joe Arpaio as many things, usually unkind four letter word descriptives. Now the name calling list will grow to include “former sugar daddy” and “sourpuss.”

Effective immediately, nearly 50 of their favorite candy items and cookies to purchase and eat will no longer be made available to the 200 juvenile inmates currently housed in the Sheriff’s jail system.

Everything from Snickers to Cherry Cola to Girl Scout Cookies to glazed donuts is off the menu, Arpaio says, as he endeavors to improve the health of the juveniles remanded into his custody.

With the recent news of the growing epidemic of type 2 diabetes, especially among Hispanic and African-American youth, sugary products which the juvenile inmates spend an average of $1000 week to buy from the Sheriff’s canteen operation will be replaced with healthy snacks like raisins, sugar free vanilla wafers, yogurt pretzels and beef jerky.

“I don’t expect this to be a welcomed policy change,” says Arpaio. “But since taxpayers pay for inmate dental work and medical care, it’s a bad idea to furnish these young people with the very products that can cause all kinds of medical problems.”

Arpaio made the announcement in person today to a number of juvenile inmates, many of whom had just returned to their cells from Hard Knocks High School, the nation’s only jailhouse high school started by Arpaio in 2001.

These are juveniles remanded to adult custody in jail for crimes of armed robbery (65), aggravated assault (40), murder (12), drive by shooting (14) and other serious crimes such as kidnapping, sexual assault, burglary and attempted murder.

He also handed out a fact sheet about diabetes as a way to explain his decision and educate inmates. Juveniles and adult inmates alike purchases millions of dollars of canteen items each year, many of them food products as a way to augment the 17 cent meals inmates are served twice daily.

An austere jail system has been the hallmark of Sheriff Arpaio’s administration. Since he became Sheriff in 1992, Arpaio has made several significant cost saving changes in the jails. He has taken away cigarettes, coffee, rental movies, radios, pornography magazines. He offers only very limited access to television viewing. Even condiments like salt and mustard were removed from the menu as a cost savings measure.

Additionally, inmates can no longer write letters mailed in traditional envelopes, instead can communicate with loved ones through postcards only to reduce contraband.

Keep up the good work Sheriff Joe!