Stronger families, safer neighborhoods
Social science research points to several reasons a family life anchored by a strong marriage places kids on a fast track to better outcomes in life.
In 2013, President Obama charged our nation with a solemn mission in response to the tragic murder of Hadiya Pendleton. Hadiya, a middle-school girl, was shot in the back by an eighteen-year-old-boy as she was standing in a Chicago park with friends. He mistook her friend group for a rival gang.
As he took the stage to respond to this tragedy, the President lamented that “no law or set of laws can prevent every senseless act of violence in this country… when a child opens fire on another child, there’s a hole in that heart that government can’t fill — only the community and parents and teachers and clergy can fill that hole.”
Rather than turning solely towards conventional political solutions to the challenge of crime, President Obama also highlighted a much more proximate solution: “There’s no more important ingredient for success, nothing would be moreimportant for us reducing violence, than strong, stable families — which means we should do more to promote marriage and encourage fatherhood.”
Over the past two years, a new wave of violent crime has swept across America’s cities—victimizing countless more Hadiya Pendletons and inflicting the greatest pain on the most vulnerable. According to CDC data, the homicide rate increased by more than 50 percent between the beginning of 2020 and mid-2021. In Atlanta, the incidence of rape was up by a gut-wrenching 236 percent in 2021. In San Francisco, burglaries have skyrocketed to more than 45 percent their levels just two years ago.
Pittsburgh has been faced with a wave of particularly heinous murders. In January, 15-year-old Marquis Campbell was shot and killed outside his school, Oliver Citywide Academy. In April, two 17-year-olds, Mathew Steffy-Ross and Jaiden Brown, were shot and killed during a North Side Airbnb party. And in May, 18-month-old De’Avry Thomas was shot and killed in a Downtown drive-by.
As America grapples with the pressure and tragedy of this new wave of crime, we should heed the wisdom of President Obama’s words in Hyde Park, Chicago, and recognize the gravity of rebuilding a healthy family ecosystem.
Yet, even as violence reaches the doorsteps of more families, many commentators and decision-makers seem to have forgotten the old bipartisan truth that the best way to prevent crime is to ensure more children are raised in supportive families.
Brookings Institution senior fellow Shadi Hammid recently criticized many progressives for ignoring the rise of violent crime around the country, calling for a renewed focus on addressing the determinants of crime. Yet, even according to Hammid, “the good liberal knows that poverty, substance abuse, and untreated mental illness fuel criminal activity. These are root causes.” Conveniently excluded from this list is family environment.
Addressing poverty, substance abuse and mental illness are certainly indispensable pieces of a comprehensive effort to curb crime, but the data overwhelmingly show that a child’s family environment has dramatic effects on their likelihood of breaking the law. As sociologist Robert Sampson observed, “family structure is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, predictors of... urban violence across cities in the United States.”
A recent study by the Institute for Family Studies found that men are about twice as likely to be incarcerated by around age 30 if they are raised in a family without a father. These differences held true even after accounting for many other factors used to explain differences in crime: race, family income and parents’ educational attainment. In fact, fatherlessness is a stronger predictor of incarceration than race and poverty.
Some argue that, while family structure may be an important factor in determining the outcomes of white children, it is less important for black children. In an op-ed for The New York Times titled, “The Myth of the Two-Parent Home,” Christina Cross of Harvard University contended “living apart from a biological parent does not carry the same cost for black youths as for their white peers.” Yet, our research shows striking differences in incarceration for black boys and girls across family structure. A stable family structure helps all of our children to resist the siren call of the street.
The work of Harvard economist Raj Chetty offers another window into the importance of the family factor when it comes to avoiding crime. He published groundbreaking datasets in 2018 that allow researchers to examine upward mobility and a host of other outcomes through a hyperlocal lens. Research using Chetty’s data found that the single strongest demographic predictor of incarceration is not race, nor is it income, or even education, but rather the share of homes in a child’s neighborhood with a father present in the household.
What causes this family structure advantage?
Social science research points to several reasons a family life anchored by a strong marriage places kids on a fast track to better outcomes in life. Kids, for example, who grow up in married parent homes are much more likely to receive an authoritative and supportive parenting style from mom and dad—marked by high levels of focus on teaching their kids the right way to behave, more monitoring of their whereabouts and higher levels of affection. They are also more likely to develop satisfying and engaged relationships with their parents. Stronger, more affectionate relationships plus greater parental involvement means that children are more likely to steer clear of trouble and embrace school and work as they move through adolescence and adulthood.
That’s why kids raised by married parents enjoy higher incomes, greater educational attainment, more social connectedness and better mental and physical health. Across the board, children raised in strong and stable families are much more likely to get the resources—and guidance—they need to thrive in adulthood.
As our nation shifts focus to address a daunting new wave of crime in our cities, we shouldn’t stop at conventional efforts to curb violence. We must also engage in the difficult work of repairing the family fabric shaping our neighborhoods. Today, more than 40% of children are born outside the security and stability found in a married home. Our kids deserve better.
Policymakers, community leaders, and all of us should make concerted efforts to support new parents and communicate the numerous benefits of a strong marriage. Leaders should cast our vision to a future where every child knows the joys of a strong, supportive family life with an involved father. The alternative is a world where too many children are raised with insufficient structure, insufficient affection and insufficient discipline, and suffer from a heightened risk of succumbing to the temptation of getting on the wrong side of the law.
President Obama was not afraid to speak this truth in the wake of Hadiya Pendleton’s tragic murder. Nor should we today.
Peyton Roth is program manager of the FREE Initiative at the American Enterprise Institute and an advisor for the Social Capital Campaign. Brad Wilcox is professor of sociology at the University of Virginia and a nonresident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.