Part Two

A debate   of sorts;   Parole vs Formulary Percentage of "Bids".  (part one) 

Having returned to "The County" (Caribou, ME), Michael brings from the road news from both Mississsipi (a public radio station) as well as tidings from Indianna...

Narcan ... What the future holds as pertains to legislation

and more...

A Transitional Journey through the Prisons of Maine 

Jerome Weiner is a  "child of the 1960s,..." " I left college thinking I was basically going to fix the world ..."    I've worked all my life in non-profits...

"We work with people from every walk of life..." Abuse knows no boundaries."

Non-profits have never been taught to work together..."  We had to put some parameters around it..."  We've become better competitors..."

I'll stop when I realize I'm not having this much fun..."

Jan Collins and her family lose their only "breadwinner", her father, to the Thomaston, Maine State Prison, as a very young school girl, forcing them into poverty. Thanks to the generosity of her uncle, a Maine dairy farmer, the family at least has the shelter of a plywood trailer with two bunks, but no running water, that was originally built to travel the country fair circuit.

In spite of these obstacles, Jan somehow manages against the odds to become a science teacher, yet will be tested again when her own son, Gordon, follows his father down the same destructive path of substance abuse, into prison.   

Today Jan, as the Assistant Director of the Maine Prisoners Advocacy Coalition, continues to wage battles on behalf of our incarcerated communities in order to bring to light the shocking level of a totally inadequate health care system, contracted out to a for-profit entity by the State of Maine. 

Please listen to my interview with Jan Collins, a truly remarkable, dedicated, and engaging woman who makes startling discoveries that begin to reveal glimpses of a world totally unknown to the "outside" community. 

At a very young age, Jan Collins, along with her sister, two older brothers, and her mother, were forced into abject poverty after the only "breadwinner " of the family, her father, as a result of problems related to alcohol, found himself in the  Thomaston, Maine State Prison Facility. 

In a series of peculiar coincidences later in life, and once again finding her own son Gregory following in his father's footsteps, it was at that point Jan knew something had to be done.

Welcome to the county "Fiefdom,"  ...truly an alien world unto itself, with its own set of rules, mores, and laws ... and oh yes, this "kingdom" even has its own head of state, ...the town sheriff.   Any preconceived notions of life behind the bars will soon be swept away by Jan Collins, of the Maine Prisoners Advocacy Coalition