Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Per 3 2/9/17
Crime, an offense that can be prosecuted by law, you see it all across time. From
the times of hammurabi where stealing would get your hand cut off and where the quote
eye for an eye took a literal meaning. To now, where people who commit crimes are
sentenced to jail time away from society to prevent such actions from taking place
age. It is true that children as young as ten commit horrendous murders. And when it
comes to sentencing, they are sentenced as if they were adults. Imagine, age 12
Johnny commits a crime, is sentenced to life without parole, put into a corrections
facility with adults ranged from eighteen to fifty seven for a multitude of different crimes
committed. There are such cases that happen, one such being the case of Greg Ousley.
The criminal justice system does its job in making sure people are put away for their
actions against the people, but it does not help them from preventing another such
action. Therapy is provided in the corrections facility, but that therapy is not there to offer
help in the understanding of why they are in a corrections facility, but to offer a way to
cope with the fact that they have been sentenced for a long period of time. Those who
are in the juvenile system on the other hand, are offered help in the understanding of
why they committed such actions. There is an ethical issue in juvenile justice and it is
whether to try juveniles as children or as adults, but they are still children and they still
have time to be helped with rehabilitations and group therapies to prevent another trial
from occurring.
There are factors that play into the decision of whether the juvenile at hand is to
be tried as an adult, and some of these factors depend on the legislature of the state of
which they are being tried in. Each state has different transfer laws, laws which dictate if
the juvenile can be transferred to an adult court of law, that categorize into four types of
transfer law; they are: statutory exclusion, judicial controlled transfer, prosecutorial
discretion transfer, and the once an adult always an adult. (Teigen) The statutory
exclusion form of transfer law gives the court the right to transfer the juvenile to an adult
court based on the severity of the crime that was committed. (Teigen) Judicial controlled
transfer basically states, like in the name, the court begins in a juvenile court and by the
court must be transferred to the adult court. (Teigen) In a prosecutorial direct transfer
the persecutors get to decide whether to file for either the juvenile court or adult court.
(Teigen) And finally, in the once an adult always an adult form of transfer law the
adult court of law. (Teigen) What is surprising is that there are states in which there are
three forms of transfer laws in place. Some examples are California, Arizona,
Oklahoma, and Florida. Those states have statutory exclusion, prosecutorial discretion,
and the once and adult, always an adult laws. With these laws the judicial system
spares no expense at the cost of the the freedom of juveniles to be tried in a juvenile
court.
There have been cases in which children commit murders and are sentenced to
a lifetime in prison where they themselves push through and come above from what
they have done. One such case is the case of Greg Ousley. Greg Ousley, age 14, shot
his father once in the head, and twice the shots with his mother all with a 12-gauge
shotgun. (Anderson 2) By the sound of it, it would not be hard for a jury to convict the
defendant as guilty. Greg got 60 year sentence when he was 14 years old, and with the
time he has spent in prison he has managed to not only become the model inmate, but
got his high school and college degree. (Anderson 4) There are times when you hear
that people do a complete 180 and change for the better, if there was anyone who has
done exactly that it is Greg Ousley. He managed to change his life because he looked
into why he did and it helped. If only the prison system of america was better at
providing therapeutic help to those looking to prevent another crime from being
committed.
The original purpose of prison is in the name of the places they stay in,
correctional facilities. They are supposed to correct the behaviors that can lead a
person to pursue yet another crime, but how are they supposed to do it when the
therapy is to help inmates cope with their incarceration and not how they got there.
(Anderson 13) It is truly an irony that the juvenile system was originally intended to
divert young offenders from the potentially life ending, career crushing punishments
and to encourage rehabilitation. (McCord 154) Juveniles could actually be getting help,
but when they are tried they are just transferred to an adult court. Yet what is stopping
the adult system from adopting similar practices to also prevent second offences. There
actions. (Feucht & Holt) This is the same kind of help that is provided in the juvenile
corrections system, why not replace the coping with the sentence time therapy and
replace it with CBT. There is a 90.9% effective or promising rating with both juvenile and
adults in CBT. (Feucht & Holt) If there is a working therapy there can be a working help
goes into the case. Such as: severity of crime, the developing mind, family history, et
cetera; the list could go on forever with smaller and more insignificant details in the ever
intricate case details that are individual to each juvenile tried. Nevertheless, there
should be equal opportunity for both adults and juveniles to acquire help as to go
deeper into the actions that lead them there and how they can prevent a second trial
from occurring.
Sources
www.ncsl.org/research/civil-and-criminal-justice/juvenile-age-of-jurisdiction-and-
transfer-to-adult-court-laws.aspx.
Anderson, Scott. Greg Ousley Is Sorry for Killing His Parents. Is That
nij.gov/journals/277/Pages/crimesolutions-cbt.aspx.