Family strength goes with less crime – study

A recent study across several American cities, and of different census tracts within one city, shows that neighborhoods with high levels of single parenthood have most of the crime.

Showing the importance of family

The Institute for Family Studies released a twenty-one page report last Tuesday (December 12).

They found higher rates of total crime, violent crime, and homicide in cities with higher levels of single parenthood. The Institute also found higher rates of these ills in census tracts in Chicago with higher levels of single parenthood.

The report begins by criticizing two other prevailing theories to explain rising urban crime:

1. “Social structure factors” of unemployment, poverty, and “economic inequality” [some having more than others, creating an incentive to steal], and
2. Cracking down on crime with more pervasive police patrols and more assiduous prosecution.

The Institute said they have identified another set of root causes: weak social institutions. These include “schools, churches, youth sports leagues, and, above all, families.” Specifically, the Institute found that family stability is the best predictor of crime – a negative correlation, naturally.

Jack Gist at The Western Journal hailed the report as a vindication of common sense. Indeed the report emphasizes family structure as a predictor of crime, and discusses the deficiencies in family structure that lead the next generation into lives of crime. The Institute heavily emphasizes the importance of a father to a strong family. A good father is:

1. A role model for his children, especially his sons,
2. More effective in setting limits on behavior, and
3. Effective in promoting academic achievement, mainly in his sons but in his daughters, too.

Details of the findings

The study sample (Table 1) seems at first glance to be properly unbiased, and not very subject to systematic biases. The other tables and graphs tell the tale. Single-parent households clearly are an unfavorable family structure, leading to increased crime.

It’s not that “social structure factors” and stronger policing and prosecution don’t or wouldn’t matter. It’s that family structure matters when most planners have never considered it.

The study authors recommend three specific policies:

1. Encourage people to get an education (high school at least), a full-time job, and married – before becoming parents.
2. Eliminate marriage penalties in any means-tested social-welfare program.
3. Offer vocational training and apprenticeships so that young people, not college-bound, can increase their earning power.

Contributor Darrell L. Castle noted on Friday (December 15) that family is an important element of civilization (hence a target of those who want a subservient class).