I hope things come out on a positive note R... Obama is someone I greatly admire and I hope he continues to impress me with this outcome

Rew you might not have a bee in your bonnet about this but now that I've discovered so much info about private prisons I think I have solved all....

Slavery I'm afraid is alive and well... I didn't realize that they were private there until recently.... This is something that would be worth fighting although it's probably another losing battle

http://tinyurl.com/poy77zf

I had hoped for more, but I suppose we have to take what we can get.

I think Obama is a good person who could have done much, much more if the Republicans had not made it their goal to sabotage his presidency.

You have to give him credit for his administration slowing down the War on Drugs, the initiative to legalize marijuana, and doing a little toward stopping these long prison sentences. People bitch about him, but no other president has had the guts to address these issues.

Also whatever anyone thinks about the ACA---Obamacare------it has helped millions obtain health coverage who could never do so before. Yes, it has its problems, but again, he is the only president who had the courage to address this urgent issue.

And Jan, no, I do not have a bee in a bonnet so much about the drug offenders in prison but the last time I Iooked, my "bonnet" resembled a bee hive. There is so much work to be done to educate people.

And yes, slavery is alive and well. It is just called something more palatable so the public will better tolerate it.

rewdiazepam

It would be wonderful if there was more treatment based incarcerations.... It is an illness... I think Obama would do more if he wasn't cut off at the knees

Pot should have been legalized and controlled years ago...It's ridiculous that it hasn't been available more medically then the last little while

A bee has been buzzing around in my noggin since I've been reading about the privatization of prisons... I didn't realize this went on until a couple of weeks ago... We don't have that here and our system is certainly bad enough

I knew that Angola just changed from a slave plantation to a prison when slavery was abolished.... People can sure be nasty

I have mixed feelings about drugs (ex's brother got addicted to heroin in his 40's.)

That said, drug laws didn't stop him from getting addicted, and treatment didn't get him clean. What helped was that he'd had a life before heroin. But what ultimately did it was just time...grew up. All of the boy's in my ex's family had "issues". All three of the boys were raised with a belt and tough love.

I've raised my kids completely opposite. I let them sleep with me until they kicked me out (around age 9 for my son, my daughter will still sleep with my at times). I nursed each until 18 months. Neither kid cried much as a baby. We moved (or shall I say a Company moved us) when my son was 6 months old. With someone else paying the tab, I hauled my son into more fine restaurants than I can count.

They always sat us by the kitchen. But by the time we left, they always looked surprised about my son...I'd usually get a comment that they "forgot he was there". Thing was, as soon as he started to fuss, I nursed him, then he was quiet.

Parenting went from there. I never pushed my kids to "eat", or told them to "put on their coat". If they were cold, they'd put it on. They weren't disabled.

School came along, and it was THEIR homework (I was back in school and had my own). They learned soon enough to be responsible for it. They set their alarms and got themselves off to school.

My job is helping them learn how to be adults. How to pick themselves up after a setback, and go on.

Both kids (15 and almost 13) look at me like I've got a 3rd head, when I ask about drugs. They're not prudes, but they know that it's a fast way to go nowhere. I tell them one day they'll likely try them. They tell me no. Who knows? Maybe they'll never try them just to spite me???

But seeing what's it's done to dad's girlfriend (who shot herself), and their uncles is a pretty strong deterrent.

When it comes to substance abuse ... I've seen the devastation from alcohol, drugs, and growing up choices have connected to the "justice" system.

Treatment plans to help diagnose the best method of recovery for any and all conditions that created the chaos which put them in the system would be better for society in common. The private system of justice is controlled for monetary gain, not people.

I have learned that what each of us experiences in growing our wisdom is ours alone. What one person does may not fit another person's situation. I have experienced first-hand the cruel consequences of overwhelming anxiety affecting the legal outcome of an "open and shut" case.

So, for the drug remedy to actually focus the individual recovery, it would have to address the natural chemical levels of "fight/flight", "anger", and not just the physical appearances of the condition. All too often, treating a specific condition brings normal reaction temporarily, and the individual is released, to repeat the same pattern of reconstruction and destruction.

I'm glad for you, Patti, to have it work out successfully for you. I know, for me, my experience is not as tidy as your is.

I do not know what the plan is, I just read what you each wrote and am responding because it's close to my heart to have the system change to help those people rather than punish society for the situation, and that's what we are doing now.