Greg Ousley's Article Summary

Teens are being tried as adults who commit felonies when we have a juvenile system. These 3 articles focus on Who, how, why, percent, and what should happen to these teens.
The author Scott Anderson uses Greg Ousley as an example to advocate for teenagers who have committed a felony to be tried in the juvenile court system. Greg Ousley was instead tried as adult and was guilty of parricide, who is serving two 30 year sentences. The article is focused around interviews with Greg and how the murders panned out. The first paragraph leaves the reader on a cliff hanger and makes the reader want to read more. In the beginning it is clear that 14-year-old Greg has a severe mental illness because he says to his mother all he thinks about is suicide

At the time of the incident, Greg was 14 and immature like most children his age. Whenever Greg would get mad at his parents he would constantly think about killing them and that his parents simply did not understand him. Greg’s age of only being 14, he was immediately waived into the adult justice system. Greg pleaded guilty but mentally ill. However by the age of 15 he was starting his 60 year sentence at the Indiana penitentiary. At the time he was sentenced, Greg was one of the youngest adult inmates in the state’s history. Even though Greg was so young when he went to adult prison, he turned out to be a model citizen. When Greg had his first interview, they were allowed to talk in a small conference room rather than in the visitor’s hall. The two were allowed to visit as long as they wanted without supervision or restraints. Given the nature of Greg’s crime around 16 years ago, Greg had little monitoring and worked across the hall from the superintendent. Because of Greg’s model behavior, he was given the possibility to be let out early on parole. The author interviews security personal for example, to show that people do

He includes these statistics to make the issue kairotic. The author goes back and forth between interviews with Greg to the startling statistics about juveniles. He put these in his article to show that the issue is more common than one may have thought. This is an issue everyday people over look and are not concerned about. These studies suggest that juveniles’ being tried as adults is a serious problem that is only going to get worse if the public isn’t educated about it. These studies also show that a great deal of teenagers who commit serious felonies have a severe psychological illness. Instead of getting the help, teenagers are forced into adult prisons without getting the mental help they desperately need. The author chose to write this article to advocate for the teens that are tried as adults when there is a juvenile court system. He uses Greg as an example of a teenager who was tried as an adult committing murder. He uses Greg to represent the other teenagers in the adult system who have committed a serious felony similar to his. The author writes about Greg’s interpersonal thoughts to show that what he was thinking about as a teenage boy is not normal and he should have gotten mental help. These statistics about teenagers committing parricide with mental health issues, coincides with another