Professional Documents
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Feb/12/17
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deplorable, and we need a new way to handle the thousands of children who commit
crimes every year, a structured solution, to save children from a life behind bars.
Instead of treating people like Children or Adults we should have a gradient scale
different ways, and change very often in the years between one and eighteen. Treating
everyone below eighteen as a child then occasionally treating them as adults, has done
nothing but throw away the lives of children who would have otherwise been normal, healthy
adults.
Take the case of Gary Ousley, a fourteen-year-old Indiana boy, charged in 1994 for
the murder of both his parents. Gary, as he describes in his interview with Scott Anderson
of the New York Times, was in a state of almost constant despair, as he lived with his very
distant father, and emotionally abusive mother, both of whom he would get into constant
heated arguments with, just as his two sisters had done before him. The arguments (...)
Between Bonnie (Mother) and her two teenage daughters, squabbles that occasionally
Since being incarcerated, Greg has come to peace with what has happened, and
done everything he can to seek forgiveness, and redemption for what he has done; As one
of his work supervisors, Cindy Estes, put it in her interview with the Times; This kid has
jumped through every hoop the state has put in front of him, he deserves to come out.
Keeping Children locked up for half their lives does nothing for anyone, if the child has
shown rehabilitation, what does keeping them contained do? Besides throw away a
Greg Ousley lived in an emotionally abusive household all his life, and at age
fourteen, ended the situation in the only way he knew how. And twenty-three years later,
hes still paying the price, why are we keeping him locked up for so long? Why do we keep
child criminals locked up for so long? Why do we treat children as adults, only in this
situation? As Gail Garinger puts it in her NY Times article Juveniles DonT Deserve Life
Sentences; The same malleability that makes them vulnerable to peer pressure, also
makes them prime candidates for rehabilitation If we treat some children like adults when
theyre being punished for crimes, why dont we also let them smoke, or drink, or drive
cars? If theyre mature enough to be tried as an adult, they should always be treated as
adults. But they wont, because its not about treating them as adults, its our judicial
systems obsession with being Tough on Crime thats caused this spiral downwards, into
predicted a coming wave of violent juvenile crime These criminologists predicted waves
of child Superpredators as young as age eleven, roaming the streets in Wolf Packs.
Actions were taken to preemptively deal with the coming wave of child crime, and the
The age to trie children as adults was lowered, and laws were written to make it easier to
sentence people to life without parole, all to deal with a wave of criminals that never came.
We need a new system, one that deals with children in a way where they can be helped,
rather than punished. Perhaps, as with most things, the answer lies in a systemized,
structured, solution; a gradient system that caps maximum sentences out for certain age
groups, and defines what treatment they will receive while incarcerated. 1-3, 4-6, 7-9,
10-12, 13-15, 16-17, 18-19. Each of these age groups should be treated differently, as
children experience rapid emotional change during these time frames, the person you were
when you were fourteen is not the same person you are now, we should hope.
In conclusion; as with most things, the best solution is usually the one thats been focus
tested by smart people for years before being implemented. A smart, systematized
solution, is the best answer for the problem of child crime, and we can finally stop locking
Citations:
Anderson, S.
Anderson, Scott. "Greg Ousley Is Sorry For Killing His Parents. Is That Enough?".
Garinger, G.
Garinger, Gail. "Juveniles DonT Deserve Life Sentences". Nytimes.com . N. p., 2014.
Araujo, Ana, Mr. Harrison, and View profile. "Juveniles Don't Deserve Life Sentences"".
Bhs-erwc.blogspot.com . N. p., 2015. Web. 10 Feb. 2017.
"Do Juvenile Killers Deserve Life Behind Bars?". NPR.org. N. p., 2012. Web. 10 Feb.
2017.