TREATMENT OR PRISON FOR DRUG OFFENDERS?

O'REILLY: In the personal stories segment tonight, Darryl Strawberry was
ordered into yet another drug rehab, his sixth time. Robert Downey, Jr.,
as you know, has also been in and out of rehab for years. The truth is
society simply does not know how to deal with drug addicts who will not
take the cure.

Joining us now from Anaheim, California is Maralys Wills, the co- author of
the book "Save My Son," which chronicles the troubles of her son Kurk Wills
(ph), a 40-year-old currently serving time in a California state
prison. He has been in and out of both prison and rehab for almost a decade.

So I guess your son's drug problem started in his early '20s, is that
right, Ms. Wills?

MARALYS WILLS, "SAVE MY SON" CO-AUTHOR: It probably started earlier than
that. I would think that he probably was about late teens but we weren't
aware of it. We weren't sure when it started because he was pretty clever
about hiding it from us.

O'REILLY: Yeah, well once you're in your late teens, there's little you can
do anyway. I mean the kid's just about an adult. So for 20 years he's
been drug involved. We'll tell the people that he's had convictions for
DWI, DUI, stealing a truck, breaking store windows, trying to buy cocaine,
drunk and disorderly.

WILLS: Yes.

O'REILLY: And he's currently in for a year and a half. So, I mean...

WILLS: Well...

O'REILLY: ... this is -- basically the system is trying to protect society
from his minor crimes. Do you think that's wrong?

WILLS: I think it's stupid. Wrong is not really the issue. It's not doing
any good to keep him in jail. Every time he goes back to jail, he simply
loses another year and a half of his life, and society loses another
$25,000 to $ 35,000.

O'REILLY: What would you do with him?

WILLS: I would have him committed, actually, to a long-term lockup drug
facility where he could get treatment, where he could get a change of
attitude, where he could get anger management. There are all sorts of
things that could actually benefit him and benefit society. But as it is
now, he's wasting society's money, and he's certainly wasting his life.

O'REILLY: All right, so you'd take him out of the general prison population
and put him into a therapeutic...

WILLS: Oh, absolutely...

O'REILLY: ... center where he could get...

WILLS: Therapeutic community.

O'REILLY: But he'd be locked up, he couldn't come home, he couldn't...

WILLS: I think this would be a good idea, yes.

O'REILLY: All right. I'm with you, I'm with you, Miss Wills. I wrote my
thesis at the Kennedy School at Harvard on exactly what you said.

WILLS: Really?

O'REILLY: There should be mandatory coerced drug rehab for these people.

WILLS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

O'REILLY: And you protect them, you protect society from them, at the same
time you give them a shot. And then after they're released, they have to
drug test at least once a week. And if they're but, but, after this
investment, Miss Wills, after this investment, if they don't clean up, then
it's real hard time. Know what I mean?

WILLS: Well, I don't think real hard time, as you call it, does any good
for anybody...

Miss Wills. It's not correct to do that.

WILLS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

O'REILLY: If you were to pay for it, OK, but I don't want to give this man
my money to go in and in and in and in. Am I wrong?

more for him now than you would be in a rehabilitation...

O'REILLY: But he's being punished now. In the other place...

WILLS: But it's not doing any good.

O'REILLY: ... he's being rehabbed.

WILLS: Right. And that has a chance of doing some good. What he's doing
now is not doing any good whatever. It's costing you money, though.

O'REILLY: All right. But think about it...

O'REILLY: ... Miss Wills. What is, what is the obligation, my obligation,
everyone watching today, to your son? Do we have an obligation

WILLS: It's not what I'd call an obligation. It's -- it makes sense. anyway.

O'REILLY: All right. But what if your son, what if your son, like Darryl
Strawberry and others, says, All right, I'm going to take this therapeutic
rehab, as you suggested. I think it's a good idea. But then I'm going to
get out and I'm going to go back to my drug-taking ways. What do you do then?

WILLS: Well, I think that if you get long-term facilities, and if they
last, say, about a month for every year that you've been an addict, you
have a chance of actually reversing this thing...

O'REILLY: But (UNINTELLIGIBLE) what do you do...

WILLS: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

O'REILLY: ... if you don't reverse it?

WILLS: If you don't reverse it, you're going to have some failures, there's
absolutely no way that we can say this is 100 percent effective. But let's
put it this way. Jail is 100 percent uneffective.

O'REILLY: All right. I'm not arguing that point...

O'REILLY: ... but you've got to...

WILLS: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

O'REILLY: ... have a stick along with the carrot.

WILLS: I agree with that. I agree with that.

O'REILLY: OK? So if your son, who's been drug involved for 20 years, gets
my money to get cured in a year or year and a half in this -- where he gets
therapy, he gets job training, he gets anger management, all the things
that he should get...

WILLS: Right, exactly.

O'REILLY: ... and then he goes out again and does it again, then I'm
telling you, Miss Wills, I put him in a work camp. I make him work his
buns off, and I punish him for abusing society's trust.

WILLS: Well, that wouldn't be a bad idea either, as a matter of fact. to
lock him up.

O'REILLY: All right.

WILLS: He's -- it's...

O'REILLY: I got you. I'm with you...

WILLS: ... costing you a lot of money.

O'REILLY: ... I'm with you about 80 percent on this, Miss Wills. And we
wish you...

WILLS: And...

O'REILLY: ... we wish you the best, and we hope your son gets better.

WILLS: Thank you.

O'REILLY: Thanks very much.

Up next, another story about mothers. A conservative magazine says moms
who work are causing all kinds of social ills. Right back.

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