A Prison Reform that Benefits Immigration and Children's education

If we are only as great as our weakest link then the only way to build a stronger foundation for America is to start at the bottom of our society. I am very much so a believer in the trickle up system where we implement change in our local government to eventually see change on a federal level.

As it stands right now we have millions of people incarcerated sitting around deemed useless to society. Our government isn't making use of our prison systems to rehabilitate prisoners and create functional human beings.  We have huge issues with immigration and education as well in this country, that we don't have the resources to do a total overhaul of these systems.  What we need to do is to start implementing a new system that will phase out the old while creating the economy to support the new systems.

My idea is simple and starts with the basic fundamental lessons that a human needs in order to live, teaching man to feed himself.  We create an agreement between farmers and the prisons that would allow farmers to use prisoners for day labor instead of illegal immigrants.  The prisoners are taught the basics of farming at the same rate that the illegal immigrants were paid, a portion of the prisoners income goes to fund immigration reform.  The other portion of their income goes towards the cultivation of the land around the prisons.  Prisoners are given a choice for which part of farming they are interested in learning about seeding, cultivation, picking, packaging, distribution, marketing and cooking, for example.  They are each given a daily schedule for their participation in the prison farm and they actually learn their role while doing it.  Giving them structure, an education and a foundation for being a productive person.  When you teach someone with purpose and they feel good in their accomplishments they will continue down that path.

Corporations that want to be involved with the farming program will need to make public bids with full disclosure about what their products contain and the actual impact their products may have on the human body and environment, if chemicals are involved.  The general public would vote on which companies will be allowed to provide for this program, in their local area.

The foods that are grown on the property are used to feed the prisoners. The prison is now supporting itself and freeing a large amount of tax payers money for the reform of other programs.  Without chemicals in their foods, the prisoners will mentally flourish. Many prisoners mental issues may be alleviated without the effects of improper nutrition and chemicals in the foods. Prisoners who have mental disabilities and aren't able to adhere to proper behavior will be able to be put on courses of medications and get the psychological attention they need because the system won't be overrun with prisoners whose issues were based on the lack of structure, proper nutrition and education.  We will truly be able to see who can be rehabilitated and who has mental illness.

The surplus food that is grown by the prisons is shipped to local schools to provide each child with a free lunch and snack of whole foods organically grown.  The prisoners being responsible for the shipping and logistics of the delivery of the food, further teaching them skills that they can use when they are released.  Providing food for schools would open a large portion of funding for other aspects of education.  Also by providing children with food that nourishes them we are increasing their ability to learn and focus.

This simple idea teaches a person how to feed themselves.  It can rehabilitate a person who was never given the chance to learn how to be a contributing member of society.  We have now taken people who are costing society and turned them into people who are paying their debt to society by creating economy while rehabilitating themselves into someone who can function in society because they were given the structure, education and proper nutrition to succeed in life.  The trickle up effects of this program would be insurmountable and would solve a lot of the issues in this country that seem to keep going deeper and deeper into despair.

Like I said at the beginning, the only way to change the problems that have developed because of the corruption of the American government is to start by changing our foundation at our weakest link.

16 years ago I was addicted to Meth.

When I was 14 years old, I had just started school at a prestigious Catholic College Prep. I was actually sought after by their music department because of how gifted I am at saxophone. The summer before school started, I spent at fat camp instead of band camp. I went from 207 lbs down to 185 lbs and was feeling great about myself until I got to school. I wanted to play basketball but my self esteem had taken a turn for the worse with my new weightloss. I was too intimidated by the height of the other girls and their level of physical fitness so I stuck to the band and drama even though I loved sports more.  The pressures to continue to lose weight were all around me. School, advertisements, the media, the trends and my family.  I was doing everything I knew how to do but it was so slow. 

At this point in my life, I was anti smoking and had only gotten a little tipsy off of whiskey, once.  A girl whom I had become friends with confided in me one day, when I complained about always watching what I eat. She said that an upper classman introduced her to this stuff called Crystal and it made things a lot easier. She continued to tell me that in her 2 weeks of using it she could get all her school work done, had a ton of energy and was barely ever hungry. She had lost 12 pounds as well.  There it was the solution to everything I had ever struggled with and in an instant, I wanted to try it. She linked me up with this chick who her friend got it from. We met in a secluded bathroom at school and I bought $20 worth. She cut up two lines and she went first. It was then my turn. I did it. I was hooked. 

I'm not joking. I loved it. I had endless energy, was barely hungry, loosing weight like rabid fire. It was incredible. I spent five years doing it and had many a great adventure but also put myself in situations like eventually getting kicked out of my house because of it, living on the streets and nearly lost my life.  I went to rehab at 19 after an incident at the motel I was living at shook me to my core. I went to a government funded rehab through the system and it worked . It worked because I wanted it to and I didn't take my chance for granted. My parents didn't make it easy for me and I had to go through social services and work very hard to fix every mess I made along the way. My councilor at rehab looked at me after our first meeting and said, "you don't have a drug problem my dear, you have an eating disorder" Throughout my rehab she wouldn't let me dance with my problems, she gave me the tools to solve them. She wouldn't let me become addicted to rehab and told me to look around any room I sat in at rehab and decide whose future looked good and the answer was, nobody. She said to ask myself if I wanted to spend my life fighting to get out of rehab or if I wanted to end the fight and move on with my life.  10 days after I graduated from rehab, at 19 years old, weighing 224lbs and full of life, I was hired to work in the mailroom at dick Clark productions and moved on with my life.... 

I worked my way up to be director of 2 department. Here's I am at 25 years old, 128 pounds, with Dick Clark on my last day before leaving for a position at Image Entertainment.  And Oct 13, 1999 is the last day I ever touched it.