Michael Douglas’s Son Cameron Released From Jail After Almost 7 Years
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.
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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.”
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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In the post, Cameron claimed that the “outdated” justice system punished non-violent drug offenders “more harshly than many violent crimes.”
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“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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Page Six also reports that Cameron plans to write a book about his years in prison and his struggles as the child and grandchild of Hollywood icons.
Douglas also has two teenage children with wife Catherine Zeta-Jones. See the couple talking about why the teens think their parents are “dumb” in the video below.
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