Recent studies on violence and delinquency point to a close link between juvenile delinquency and the breakdown of families in America. According to Patrick F. Fagan, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, "a child needs a massive amount of social, interpersonal nurturance, starting with the mother for at least two years...if children doesn't have that, they don't grow into competent, compassionate people." If there is a lack of love because of an absent father or a distracted or detached mother, accompanied by inconsistent parenting, family turmoil, economic hardship, and mental or emotional illness, the consequences are dire for the child.
Mr. Fagan "synthesizes" the findings of numerous social science studies in his 1995 Heritage Foundation paper: "The Real Root Causes of Violent Crime: The Breakdown of Marriage, Family, and Community."
Progress, in preventing children from growing up to be criminals, can only be made if we clearly understand why some kids grow up to be criminals and some don't. Many people still believe that crime is a problem of poverty. Poverty alone, however, is a poor predictor of crime. In a high-crime inner city neighborhood, 90 percent of children from stable homes do not become delinquent, while only 10 percent of of children from unstable homes avoid criminality
If poverty caused crime, we would have expected to see crime rates rise during the Great Depression. Crime rates actually fell during that period. We would also have expected the $5 trillion dollars spent on America's "War on Poverty" since 1965 to have lowered crime levels as material living standards were raised in the U.S. Unfortuanately, it was exactly during this time that crime rates soared to unthinkable and unconscionable levels. Clearly, the causes of crime goes far beyond economic conditions.
America's "Social Safety Net" is anything but safe. America has produced some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the world, not because it has been too stingy with dollars, but because it has failed to provide children with what they need most...a stable family.
