Apple Rush May be the Best Investment Opportunity This Year

In existence since 1972, Apple Rush Co., Inc. (ARRU) is a producer of sparkling juice beverages.  They recently developed new product lines, which are ready for introduction.  These product lines include adult and CBD infused beverages.

While the CV-19 situation has held up their plan, the plan is to be in 20 states by the end of this year and in all 50 states within two years.  Nine days ago, they announced a plan to start selling their products in Japan.

In the last month, their stock price has gone up 216%.  (Today it went up 15.15%)  At today's close, (.0038) a $100 investment would buy 26,315 shares.  In my opinion, if someone can afford to risk $100, the potential reward far out ways the risk.

Of course, one should perform their own due diligence.  Try searching the following:

"APRU and Various Brands Take to the Virtual field: Sponsoring the SFL’s Championship Halftime Show"

"Apple Rush Taps Paul Guilfoile and PT Innovations"

"Apple Rush announces fiscal year 2019 results and featured article in The Shelby Report"

"Apple Rush Company, Inc. announces letter to shareholders"

Find Apple Rush on Face Book, here.

Who will be the heroes and patriots of the current American crisis?

April 17, 2020

By CT State Senator Rob Sampson (R-16)

These last couple weeks of the coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak have impacted us all in a big way and will no doubt leave indelible marks on the future of our great country. My sense is that the word “crisis” has been used more often in recent days than in my whole life before now.
As an American patriot and a lover of history, what comes to mind immediately when I hear “crisis” or even more specifically – “an American crisis,” is the work of one of America’s less appreciated founding fathers, Thomas Paine. Paine was an imperfect character (as we all are) and many would argue he miscalculated many of his life decisions. Nonetheless, he should still be regarded as one of the key heroes – and instigators of the American revolution. John Adams said of him “Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain”.

I read something recently that suggested that every 80 years, America faces a crisis that requires a new hero generation.

This immediately made me wonder who the heroes and patriots of this American crisis might be. It is a different type of crisis but with some striking similarities. The American revolution was not about a virus but rather an awakening of the human spirit as a result of oppressive rule. The British colonists were a special breed, pioneers and their descendants – people with a passion for freedom, individual strength of resolve, and a potentially enhanced predisposition for rebellion.
King George provoked their independent nature with his repeated disregard for the individual British colonists, failing to respond to their desire to pass laws to govern the colonies, cutting off trade, imposing punitive taxes, and ultimately committing acts “which may define a tyrant.”  In response to that tyranny, the spirit of freedom, as a fire, swelled from mere sparks to a blaze! The rest of course, is our history.

From Behind Bars - Ending Mass Incarceration - Part 5

HMP Dovegate, from the Serco website.

Updated 4/07/24

By Michael Liebowitz

A Connecticut prisoner for some 25 years, Liebowitz was formerly housed at Osborn Correctional Institution in Somers, CT.  He has been a free man since November 2022.

Sadly, Melissa Palmeri passed away on Sunday, March 24th.  She was only 44 yrs. old.  Her obituary can be read, here.  Please consider making a ten-dollar donation to help Melissa's son, Vinny and Michael.  Donate here.

Along with Brett McCall, Liebowitz is also co-author of "Down the Rabbit Hole: How the Culture of Corrections Encourages Crime", available at Amazon.  Dr. Stanton E. Samenow, PhD reviewed the work in a 3/12/21 article in Psychology Today magazine.  In his review he writes, "I have found that Liebowitz and McCall are keen observers with a positive objective - to help others become more effective in helping people like themselves to change and become responsible human beings.  This book is definitely worth a read."  Michael's second book, "View from a Cage" is now in print.

Liebowitz is also a regular guest with Todd Feinburg on WTIC AM 1080.  Podcasts of Todd's segments with Liebowitz can be heard, here.

Remunerate Correctional Officials and Employees Based on Results, i.e., Reduced Recidivism

          “There aren’t very many occupations where the more an organization fails to achieve its overarching objective the more its employees stand to make.  Corrections is one of them.  As the system is presently designed, the earning potential of those who work in our nation’s prisons is tied directly to high prison populations and high rates of recidivism.  And so long as that remains the case, society will continue to see the kind of abysmal results it has witnessed since the advent of the modern correctional era.

          “Prison systems should be structured in a way that incentivizes reductions in recidivism.  Presently they are not.  Politicians and corrections officials may pay lip service to the importance of reducing the number of offenders returning to our nation’s prisons, but the fact is the system is set up in a way that encourages high prison populations.

          “Whether prisons are operated by government officials or privately run, the incentive is to maintain or increase prison populations.  Not only do substantial incarceration rates mean increased earnings for correctional officers and other rank and file institutional staff  (who are beneficiaries of significant amounts of overtime) [but] private prisons get paid on a per inmate per diem basis.  So the more inmates they house, the higher the profits for shareholders.  By contrast, lower recidivism means lower earnings for most of those directly involved, regardless of whether it is a publicly or privately-run institution.

          “To be clear, we are not suggesting that high rates of recidivism are a consciously pursued goal on anyone’s part.  We don’t see the problem as a nefarious conspiracy.  To ascribe intention to any of this seems to us to grant too many people entirely too much credit.  What we are saying is that people respond to the way in which things are incentivized, and that the present arrangement is tantamount to disincentivizing the development or implementation of meaningful strategies to reduce the rate of recidivism.  Stated a bit differently, the present design inadvertently rewards inaction.  Simply put: When one is likely to make more money from doing nothing than he is from doing something – especially something as challenging as trying to motivate offenders to undertake the work necessary to change – it isn’t hard to guess which path he is going to take, i.e., the path of least resistance.

From Behind Bars - Ending Mass Incarceration - Part 4

Image from Global Research Center

Updated 4/07/24

By Michael Liebowitz

A Connecticut prisoner for some 25 years, Liebowitz was formerly housed at Osborn Correctional Institution in Somers, CT.  He has been a free man since November 2022.

Sadly, Melissa Palmeri passed away on Sunday, March 24th.  She was only 44 yrs. old.  Her obituary can be read, here.  Please consider making a ten-dollar donation to help Melissa's son, Vinny and Michael.  Donate here.

Along with Brett McCall, Liebowitz is also co-author of "Down the Rabbit Hole: How the Culture of Corrections Encourages Crime", available at Amazon.  Dr. Stanton E. Samenow, PhD reviewed the work in a 3/12/21 article in Psychology Today magazine.  In his review he writes, "I have found that Liebowitz and McCall are keen observers with a positive objective - to help others become more effective in helping people like themselves to change and become responsible human beings.  This book is definitely worth a read."  Michael's second book, "View from a Cage" is now in print.

Liebowitz is also a regular guest with Todd Feinburg on WTIC AM 1080.  Podcasts of Todd's segments with Liebowitz can be heard, here.

Widespread Implementation of Core Correctional Practices

          Implementing evidence-based programs, while necessary, won’t be enough.  This is because even the best programs have little chance of succeeding in correctional environments that are not conducive to offender reform.  Whatever lessons offenders learn in their programs will be undermined by the dysfunctional milieus in which they live.  Unfortunately, this is a far more common problem than you may think.  Consider “… Anthony Flores and his colleagues (Flores, Russell, Latessa & Travis, 2005) asked 171 correctional practitioners to identify three criminogenic needs, none could.”  Given the importance of targeting criminogenic needs when trying to reform offenders, this is more than a little disheartening.  And this refers to practitioners.  Imagine how bad the case is for “front-line” staff!

          Also, “Gendreau and Goggin (1997) report that only a minority of correctional agencies - perhaps as few as 1 in 10 - function in such a way as to satisfactorily deliver effective treatment programs.”  They identified such problems as “ … employing program directors and staff that have little professional training or knowledge about effective treatment programs; the failure to assess offenders with scientifically based actuarial risk instruments; the targeting of factors … for change that are weakly related or unrelated to recidivism; the use of treatments that were ‘inappropriate’ or delivered with insufficient ‘dosage’ or ‘intensity’; the failure to include aftercare in the treatment; and a general lack of therapeutic integrity.” 

Available at Amazon

          In our book, “Down the Rabbit Hole: How the Culture of Corrections Encourages Crime”, Brent McCall and I identified several of these factors, as well as others.  These include staff modeling inappropriate behavior, lending support to criminal values, not enforcing nor following the rules and rewarding bad behavior and punishing good behavior.

Imprimis - Thoughts on the Current Crisis; A Must Read

Larry P. Arnn is the twelfth president of Hillsdale College. He received his B.A. from Arkansas State University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in government from the Claremont Graduate School. From 1977 to 1980, he also studied at the London School of Economics and at Worcester College, Oxford University, where he served as director of research for Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill. From 1985 until his appointment as president of Hillsdale College in 2000, he was president of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. He is the author of Liberty and Learning: The Evolution of American Education; The Founders’ Key: The Divine and Natural Connection Between the Declaration and the Constitution; and Churchill’s Trial: Winston Churchill and the Salvation of Free Government.
_______________________________________________________

First a report about the College. Hillsdale’s campus is quiet, which it ought not to be, but also well. Our students were away for spring break when the coronavirus hit. We spent the week absorbing the news and making plans to bring them back, it being our job to have college. We found that we could not. Much of what I am writing here is shaped by this discovery: we did not have and could not get the tools and knowledge to do our work. And soon enough we were forbidden to do it by general fiat.

Spirits are good here, nonetheless. There have been many inspiring examples of service, good humor, and effort. I just finished a videoconference with the senior class officers to plan Commencement, which will be a grand celebration whether it is in May or later this summer. The seniors will arrive days early, dress up in their finery, and come over in groups for dinner at my house and sing and give toasts. Those are important rituals of friendship, and students have the same attitude as I: they will put up with absence and isolation, but resent it, and they will redouble their efforts to achieve the best things. They are determined to convert this disruption into an opportunity for excellence.

Meanwhile we are teaching our students online. We have learned a lot from producing online courses for the public over the past decade, and over two million citizens have taken one or more of them. Soon we plan to start a master’s degree program in classical education, and we will have an online component to that as well. But we lose something beautiful and irreplaceable when we are not in a classroom, and we regret very much these days having our students at a distance. There is a real loss in their absence, just as there is real loss everywhere in the nation. This loss is little measured or understood.

Financially the College is in good shape. We do not have much in the way of debt, and we keep a lot of cash around. We are cautious in our management of the College, and we are cautious with good reason. I have been president here for 20 years, and during that time we have had 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, and now this. So we are pretty well prepared for whatever comes.

***

From Behind Bars - Ending Mass Incarceration - Part 3

Pres. Trump signs "First Step Act"  Image from Time Mag.

Updated 3/24/24

By Michael Liebowitz

A Connecticut prisoner for some 25 years, Liebowitz was formerly housed at Osborn Correctional Institution in Somers, CT.  He has been a free man since November 2022.

Since his release, he authored "View from a Cage: My Transformation from Convict to Crusader for Liberty" and currently hosts the podcast, "The Rational Egoist".

Today, he and the love of his life, Melissa, need our help.  They haven't the resources to absorb the associated loss of income and the expenses that come from Melissa's cancer treatment.  Please consider making a ten-dollar donation to help Melissa, her son and Michael.  Donate here.

Along with Brett McCall, Liebowitz is also co-author of "Down the Rabbit Hole: How the Culture of Corrections Encourages Crime", available at Amazon.  Dr. Stanton E. Samenow, PhD reviewed the work in a 3/12/21 article in Psychology Today magazine.  In his review he writes, "I have found that Liebowitz and McCall are keen observers with a positive objective - to help others become more effective in helping people like themselves to change and become responsible human beings.  This book is definitely worth a read."

Liebowitz is also a regular guest with Todd Feinburg on WTIC AM 1080.  Podcasts of Todd's segments with Liebowitz can be heard, here.

Widespread Implementation of Evidence-Based Programs

          

Before delving into what I mean by “evidence-based programs”, I think it will be helpful to first briefly discuss the history of the idea that one of the purposes of prisons is to rehabilitate offenders.

          The penitentiary system was created in the late 18^th century and came into prominence in the 19^th.  From the beginning it was supposed that among the goals of incarceration was that of reforming the character of criminals.  Whether through the “silent system” as at New York’s Auburn prison, or the “separate system” at Pennsylvania’s Cherry Hill prison, it was thought that removing offenders from society, making them labor, intensively, and teaching them religion would get them to atone for their sins and alter their evil ways.

          By the late19^th century it became clear that this model was failing, and changes were soon enacted.  Labor and religion were still very much part of the prison experience, but new reforms, such as indeterminate sentencing, were added to the mix.  While never fully implemented in practice, the idea of the indeterminate sentence was that there would be no specified period of time to which criminals would be sentenced.  Instead, they would be released when their actions demonstrated that they were ready for society; this was thought to provide offenders with the necessary incentive to reform themselves.

          Parole, probation, vocational education and rehabilitation programs developed in the early 20^th century, making up what came to be known as the “rehabilitative ideal.”  Then in 1954 the American Prison Association became the American Correctional Association and prisons became “correctional institutions.”

          After approximately 70 years as the dominant idea in criminal justice, the rehabilitative ideal fell into disrepute.  The 1960s and 70s were turbulent times characterized by several high-profile assassinations, war, protests, and rising crime rates.  Many people lost faith in society’s ability to reform offenders.  A perfect storm was in place for what was perhaps the most significant blow against the rehabilitative ideal: Robert Martinson’s “nothing works” report.

A plethora of studies have shown that certain types of programs, when implemented properly, lead to significant reductions in recidivism.

From Behind Bars - Ending Mass Incarceration, Part 2

Image from Alabama Dept. of  Economic Affairs

Updated 3/16/24

By Michael Liebowitz

A Connecticut prisoner for some 25 years, Liebowitz was formerly housed at Osborn Correctional Institution in Somers, CT.  He has been a free man since November 2022.

Since his release, he authored "View from a Cage: My Transformation from Convict to Crusader for Liberty" and currently hosts the podcast, "The Rational Egoist".

Today, he and the love of his life, Melissa, need our help.  They haven't the resources to absorb the associated loss of income and the expenses that come from Melissa's cancer treatment.  Please consider making a ten-dollar donation to help Melissa, her son and Michael.  Donate here.

Along with Brett McCall, Liebowitz is also co-author of "Down the Rabbit Hole: How the Culture of Corrections Encourages Crime", available at Amazon.  Dr. Stanton E. Samenow, PhD reviewed the work in a 3/12/21 article in Psychology Today magazine.  In his review he writes, "I have found that Liebowitz and McCall are keen observers with a positive objective - to help others become more effective in helping people like themselves to change and become responsible human beings.  This book is definitely worth a read."

Liebowitz is also a regular guest with Todd Feinburg on WTIC AM 1080.  Podcasts of Todd's segments with Liebowitz can be heard, here.

Widespread Implementation of Functional Family Therapy (FFT) and Multi-Systemic Therapy (MST)

Hold Juveniles Accountable

         

Perhaps the best way to reduce crime is to intervene in the lives of at-risk and delinquent youths to prevent them from becoming full-blown adult criminals.  Fortunately, there are two cost-effective programs that have been shown to reduce juvenile delinquency: Functional Family Therapy (FFT) and Multi-Systemic Therapy (MST).  Let’s look at each of these.

There is an abundance of evidence indicating familial relationships have a significant effect on both the formation and continuance of juvenile delinquency.  Thus, if the goal is to reduce such delinquency, it makes sense to target the entire family for intervention.  This is precisely what FFT does.

“[FFT] … is a structured, family-based intervention that uses a multi-step approach to enhance protective factors and reduce risk factors in the family.”  Addressed to medium-risk youths between 10 and 18 and to their families, it attempts to change the way family members communicate with one another and thereby improve relationships within the family.  The FFT therapist seeks to identify the “functions” a youth’s antisocial behaviors serve, as well as the functions the other family members’ problem behaviors serve and it attempts to show them how to satisfy these needs/wants with more productive behaviors.