MICHAEL DOUGLAS SPEAKS OUT AGAINST THE PRISON SYSTEM

I didn’t watch the Emmy Awards the other nite but I did catch up on the winners, the glitZ and the glamour, the gowns (!!), the next day. What specifically caught my attention however was Michael Douglas’s acceptance speech for his Emmy for his portrayal of Liberace in “Behind the Candelabra”. Michael Douglas has a son, Cameron, serving a 10 yr sentence for a drug crime … actually in 2010 he was sentenced to 5 years in prison for possession of heroin and for dealing meth (.23 kg, or half a lb). In 2011 he was given another 4 1/2 years for possession of drugs while in prison. Cameron’s drug addiction has been followed and publicized since he was a very young man, he is clearly someone who needs help, medical treatment, not more punishment.

To make things even worse the young man is currently serving 2 of those years in solitary confinement. An apparent urinalysis came up ‘dirty’, meaning he failed a drug test, resulting in the prison hierarchy sending him to solitary confinement as punishment. Many, like myself, would feel two years in Solitary seems excessive and extremely harsh by any measure. Why there hasn’t been more information forthcoming from the mainstream media, especially in light of Cameron coming from a prominent family, troubles me. I’m not suggesting he deserves preferential treatment, I AM saying if Cameron Douglas, with all his family celebrity and connections , can be tossed in an obscure solitary cell for years at a time, for simply a “dirty piss test”, and the mainstream media isn't all over the story, what chance do we ordinary citizens have of anyone hearing OUR voices, our stories, when our children, our sons and daughters, are treated in such a cruel and inhumane manner.

Furthermore, Michael Douglas is apparently unable to even visit, to see his son while he is in solitary. This puzzles and concerns me. That the Prison is forbidding Cameron visitation rights as well. How on earth this young man can be expected to come out of prison, be released into society, as a normal, balanced human being after being stuck in a cell by himself, deprived of all manner of stimuli, for two years, is beyond me. How is this punishment of Cameron making any of us safer in society?

These acts committed every single day in our nations prisons should concern all Americans.

Michael Douglas has opened up in front of millions of viewers while taking the stage to accept his award, and he's shared his anger at discovering the system, the american justice system, is not what he thought it was..."I’m questioning the system,” he added. ”Obviously, at first I was certainly disappointed with my son, but I’ve reached a point now where I’m very, very disappointed with the system.” Douglas also said his son, a nonviolent drug addict for most of his life, has spent almost two years in solitary and that the actor was told he might not see him for another two years (ABC NEws, 9/23/13).

"The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual crime." ~Max Stirner, The Ego and His Own