Alessandro Guaresti

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

again. Crime is a widespread phenomenon; it happens regardless of race, gender, or

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

juvenile in question is to be tried as an adult if they have been previously tried in an

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

is an effective type of therapy called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) it is a type of

therapeutic intervention to think about situations affect choices, behaviors and

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

system for both adults and juveniles.

 It really is difficult to try a juvenile in a court of law when you think about what

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

Teigen, Anne. JUVENILE AGE OF JURISDICTION AND TRANSFER TO

ADULT COURT LAWS. National Conference of State Legislature, 1 Feb. 2017,

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

Enough? The New York Times, 19 July 2012, pp. 121.

McCord, Joan, et al. Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice. Washington, DC,

National Academy Press, 2001.

Feucht, Thomas, and Tammy Holt. Does Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Work in Criminal Justice? A New Analysis From CrimeSolutions.gov. National

Institute of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 26 May 2016,

nij.gov/journals/277/Pages/crimesolutions-cbt.aspx.