Michael Douglas’ son, Cameron Douglas, has been released from prison early after serving almost seven years for drug charges.
The 37-year-old was transferred from jail to a halfway house in Brooklyn, New York, according to Page Six.
Cameron,
who is the eldest son of the Oscar winner and his ex-wife Diandra, was
sentenced to five years in prison for possession of heroin and selling
methamphetamine in 2010. After admitting to smuggling drugs into prison,
his sentence was extended and he was not scheduled to be let out until
next year.
Douglas has frequently discussed his son’s incarceration and his frustration at the justice system for how the case was handled.
“I
have gone from being a very disappointed but loving father who felt his
son got what was due him to realizing that Lady Justice’s blindfold is
really slipping,” the actor told New York magazine in 2013.
“I’m not defending Cameron as a drug dealer or drug addict, but I
believe, because of his last name, he’s been [made] an example.”
Douglas, 71, also talked about Cameron’s jail time while accepting a 2013 Emmy Award for his performance in Behind the Candelabra.
“My
son Cameron is in federal prison,” said Douglas. “He’s been,
unfortunately, a drug addict for most of his life and was arrested for
dealing drugs. It’s a non-violent offense, but unfortunately in prison
it’s as easy to get drugs, or easier, than it is on the street. And so
he’s had a couple little slips.”
Earlier
this year, Douglas confessed that one of his biggest regrets was not
taking enough time to parent Cameron while he was growing up. “When
you’re busy all the time, you don’t think about a whole lot of other
things than the realities in front of you,” he told AARP magazine.
The Ant-Man
star added that he believed Cameron had served “more than his fair
share of time” behind bars and that he was visiting him twice a month.
Cameron himself voiced his frustrations at the legal system by writing an essay from prison for The Huffington Post in 2013.
In
the post, Cameron claimed that the “outdated” justice system punished
non-violent drug offenders “more harshly than many violent crimes.”
“I’m
not saying that I didn’t deserve to be punished, or that I’m worthy of
special treatment,” he wrote. “I made mistakes and I’ll gladly and
openly admit my faults. However, I seem to be trapped in a vicious cycle
of relapse and repeat, as most addicts are. Unfortunately, whereas the
effective remedy for relapse should be treatment, the penal system’s
‘answer’ is to lock the door and throw away the key.”
“Instead
of focusing on how many individuals this county can keep imprisoned,
why can we not focus on how many individuals we can keep from coming
back?” Cameron continued in the editorial.
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