Quote Article:
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.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/1995/03/bg1026nbsp-the-real-root-causes-of-violent-crime
