The Real Root Causes of Violent Crime: The Breakdown of Marriage, Family, and Community

[BeatMan]

INTRODUCTION

Policymakers at last are coming to recognize the connection between the breakdown of American families and various social problems. The unfolding debate over welfare reform, for instance, has been shaped by the wide acceptance in recent years that children born into single-parent families are much more likely than children of intact families to fall into poverty and welfare dependence themselves in later years. These children, in fact, face a daunting array of problems.

While this link between illegitimacy and chronic welfare dependency now is better understood, policymakers also need to appreciate another strong and disturbing pattern evident in scholarly studies: the link between illegitimacy and violent crime and between the lack of parental attachment and violent crime. Without an understanding of the root causes of criminal behavior -- how criminals are formed -- Members of Congress and state legislators cannot understand why whole sectors of society, particularly in urban areas, are being torn apart by crime. And without that knowledge, sound policymaking is impossible.

A review of the empirical evidence in the professional literature of the social sciences gives policymakers an insight into the root causes of crime. Consider, for instance:

• Over the past thirty years, the rise in violent crime parallels the rise in families abandoned by fathers.
• High-crime neighborhoods are characterized by high concentrations of families abandoned by fathers.
• State-by-state analysis by Heritage scholars indicates that a 10 percent increase in the percentage of children living in single-parent homes leads typically to a 17 percent increase in juvenile crime.
• The rate of violent teenage crime corresponds with the number of families abandoned by fathers.
• The type of aggression and hostility demonstrated by a future criminal often is foreshadowed in unusual aggressiveness as early as age five or six.
• The future criminal tends to be an individual rejected by other children as early as the first grade who goes on to form his own group of friends, often the future delinquent gang.

On the other hand:

• Neighborhoods with a high degree of religious practice are not high-crime neighborhoods.
• Even in high-crime inner-city neighborhoods, well over 90 percent of children from safe, stable homes do not become delinquents. By contrast only 10 percent of children from unsafe, unstable homes in these neighborhoods avoid crime.
• Criminals capable of sustaining marriage gradually move away from a life of crime after they get married.
• The mother's strong affectionate attachment to her child is the child's best buffer against a life of crime.
• The father's authority and involvement in raising his children are also a great buffer against a life of crime.

The scholarly evidence, in short, suggests that at the heart of the explosion of crime in America is the loss of the capacity of fathers and mothers to be responsible in caring for the children they bring into the world. This loss of love and guidance at the intimate levels of marriage and family has broad social consequences for children and for the wider community. The empirical evidence shows that too many young men and women from broken families tend to have a much weaker sense of connection with their neighborhood and are prone to exploit its members to satisfy their unmet needs or desires. This contributes to a loss of a sense of community and to the disintegration of neighborhoods into social chaos and violent crime. If policymakers are to deal with the root causes of crime, therefore, they must deal with the rapid rise of illegitimacy.

https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-...olent-crime-the-breakdown-marriage-family-and

 

[BluesDriver66]

it's so obvious. Poor people are poor because of their low moral character. The solution is clear. End welfare and all social programs.

 

[JohnEngelman]

• Over the past thirty years, the rise in violent crime parallels the rise in families abandoned by fathers.
• https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-...olent-crime-the-breakdown-marriage-family-and

I agree with BeatMan that the rise in illegitimacy is a national problem, and a personal tragedy. Nevertheless, let's keep our facts straight.

Thirty years ago was 1993. According to the Disaster Center in 1993, per 100,000 inhabitants:
the incidence of violent crime was 746.8;
the incidence of murder was 9.5;
the incidence of rape was 41.1; and
the incidence of aggravated assault was 440.2.

Statistics go up to 2019.

According to the Disaster Center in 2019, per 100,000 inhabitants:
the incidence of violent crime was 379.4
the incidence of murder was 5.0;
the incidence of rape was 42.6; and
the incidence of aggravated assault was 250.2.
https://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

In other words, the only crime rate that increased was the rape rate, and it increased slightly.

If anyone knows what happened to the rates of violent crime from 2020 to 2022, please post them. I am confident they did not rise to the levels they reached in 1993.

 

[phrodeau]

We could reduce the white male incel problem by bringing back arranged marriages.

 

[VinnyVeritas]

I read something just like that yesterday penned by a prominent African-American. If I run across it again, I'll post a link to it.

 

[VinnyVeritas]

Jason Whitlock:

“They don’t want us focused on reality. Hey, if they want to devote an hour of coverage to this and weekend coverage of this, and they want to take us to a good place, I would examine the racial element of this because there is a racial element. And this is a story about young black men and their inability to treat each other in a humane way. Everybody involved in this on the street level was either 24 to 32 years old, everybody. It was a group of young black men, five-on-one. It looked like gang violence to me. It looked like what young black men do when they’re supervised by a single black woman, and that’s what they’ve got going on in the Memphis Police Department.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/202...en-theyre-supervised-by-a-single-black-woman/

 

[RobDownSouth]

We have a MAGAt attempting to blame police brutality on single black mothers

 

[JohnEngelman]

We have a MAGAt attempting to blame police brutality on single black mothers

He ought to be blaming single black fathers. Those are the people who are not living up to their parental responsibilities.

 

[DeluxAuto]

MAGAts using the cop's skin color as a get out of jail free card or an excuse to victim blame is very on brand for them.

 

[phrodeau]

Jason sure changed his tune in a rush.

Policing is a frustrating, high-stress job. It’s a mistake to increase the stress and frustration of police officers. You can trigger them to combust.

The frustration of law enforcement is not color-coded. Black and white officers feel the exact same frustration and lose control of themselves at the same rate.

https://www.theblaze.com/amp/whitlock-attitude-explains-tyre-nichols-tragedy-not-racism-2659320770

 

[Bray123]

That explains so much about Trump. Repeated failed marriages, lack of religious conviction and absentee mothers.

 

[schism666]

He ought to be blaming single black fathers. Those are the people who are not living up to their parental responsibilities.

the murderer's single black fathers or the victim's?

this must be very confusing for a poorly educated racist such as yourself.

 

[NewOldGuy77]

Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s report in 1965 warned about the effects of breaking down the Black family unit (by only paying welfare when there was no father in the home) but it caused such an unpopular uproar that it was ignored/discredited. Turns out he was right.

 

[Rightguide]

He ought to be blaming single black fathers. Those are the people who are not living up to their parental responsibilities.

Blame the Left, they are the ones who convinced young men and women that being promiscuous was okay and that the solution to a high body count and a round-up of dozens of men for DNA testing was marrying the government.

 

[phrodeau]

Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s report in 1965 warned about the effects of breaking down the Black family unit (by only paying welfare when there was no father in the home) but it caused such an unpopular uproar that it was ignored/discredited. Turns out he was right.

So a person who possibly benefitted from a welfare program, managed to become Chief of Police in a major city, and is somehow responsible for violent acts in her department, because of the welfare? I can only imagine what your connect-the-dots book looked like.

 

[ll74]

Blame the Left, they are the ones who convinced young men and women that being promiscuous was okay and that the solution to a high body count and a round-up of dozens of men for DNA testing was marrying the government.

Why not.....you blame the left for everything else.

 

[coati]

That explains so much about Trump. Repeated failed marriages, lack of religious conviction and absentee mothers.

It also can be used to explain why the famous attorney Alex Murdaugh murdered his wife and son. Even though he had the "perfect family", the lack of perfect families in general society was just too much stress for him and caused him to blow a gasket.

You know, correlation always means causation, right?

 

[Rightguide]

Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s report in 1965 warned about the effects of breaking down the Black family unit (by only paying welfare when there was no father in the home) but it caused such an unpopular uproar that it was ignored/discredited. Turns out he was right.

It's become completely apparent to informed people the verity of the above. This is what the left wants, they know their biggest enemy is the family structure. This is why they're coming after the nation's children. The Democrats and the rest of the Left want this country divided along racial lines, their goal being to drive a wedge between us and to destroy the unity of the nation. The last thing they want to see is a pre-1950 black family structure. The last person on Earth they want black people to pay any kind of attention to is Thomas Sowell.

 

[ll74]

It's become completely apparent to informed people the verity of the above. This is what the left wants, they know their biggest enemy is the family structure. This is why they're coming after the nation's children. The Democrats and the rest of the Left want this country divided along racial lines, their goal being to drive a wedge between us and to destroy the unity of the nation. The last thing they want to see is a pre-1950 black family structure. The last person on Earth they want black people to pay any kind of attention to is Thomas Sowell.

This is dumb.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

The Democrats and the rest of the Left want this country divided along racial lines, their goal being to drive a wedge between us and to destroy the unity of the nation. The last thing they want to see is a pre-1950 black family structure.

Here's a smidge of history on how this country (largely but not wholly southern whites in the Right) acted in regard to pre-1950 Black family structured communities:

For the White people out there in Andy Griffith television land who are overly sensitized to this sort of verity about the "good ol' days" of America, not to worry...it's now illegal to learn about this in DeSantis' Florida, so you're all good on your next vay-kay to the sunny hedonistic beaches of Miami!

 

[Rightguide]

Here's a smidge of history on how this country (largely but not wholly southern whites in the Right) acted in regard to pre-1950 Black family structured communities:

For the White people out there in Andy Griffith television land who are overly sensitized to this sort of verity about the "good ol' days" of America, not to worry...it's now illegal to learn about this in DeSantis' Florida, so you're all good on your next vay-kay to the sunny hedonistic beaches of Miami!

All perpetrated by Democrats.

 

[phrodeau]

All perpetrated by Democrats.

At least you don’t blame Blacks. Go you.

 

[Chernosoth]

Empires are built on violent crime, the military oppression and exploitation of weaker nations. They last around 300 years. We're at the end of the American empire, when the military stops being profitable. Then the empire cannibalizes itself to maintain some wealth for a shrinking elite. Random violence and the breakdown of everything, lasting more centuries, are the cost at the end for the benefits at the beginning. That's a high price that humanity keeps paying in new empires because humans are not mentally equipped for planning that far ahead.

 

[JohnEngelman]

the murderer's single black fathers or the victim's?

this must be very confusing for a poorly educated racist such as yourself.

I am blaming unmarried black fathers in general. As of February 2020 69.4 percent of black children were illegitimate.
https://www.ceousa.org/2020/02/26/percentage-of-births-to-unmarried-women/

Their fathers should marry the mothers of those children and raise those children properly. Most of those children are being raised on welfare. I think that is disgraceful.

This must be very confusing for a sanctimonious virtue signaling anti racist like you.

 

[phrodeau]

Shotgun weddings all around!