In my article Six Major Reasons Why People Commit Crimes, I explained why crimes are committed; in this article, I will dig even deeper, going into two of the underlying root causes behind those six reasons, and present some evidence to back up my claims.
For example, in that previous article I said that lack of control of one’s emotions or physiology, having poor judgment, having bad influences that outweigh the good influences, and so forth, are some of the reasons why people commit crimes. One could possibly argue that these things are only correlations, in that statistical analyses could prove that these things only correlate to criminal activity. But, I would argue that if we really wanted to reduce criminal activity, and reduce crime rates, then we need to start developing policies that influence our culture in ways so that people are less likely to lose control, have bad influences, etc., thus lowering the crime that happens as a result of those things.
With this in mind, we really need to look at the underlying root causes behind those six major reasons.
If you’re in the black community, you especially need to pay close attention. You complain about high incarceration rates in the black community, but fail to recognize that your high incarceration rate is because of the high crime rate in your community. So, if you really want to lower the black incarceration rate, then you’re going have to work on lowering the black crime rate, and if you want to lower your crime rate, then you’ll need to recognize the six major reasons why people commit crimes, and find the underlying root causes behind those six major reasons, and thus work on changing those underlying root causes.
By changing those underlying root causes for the better, you reduce the six major reasons why people commit crimes, and thus reduce crime in your community.
So let’s go through two of the major root causes why people commit crime, and the evidence for those two root causes.
Root Cause Number One: Breakdown of the Nuclear Family, Healthy Marriages, and the Community
One conservative think tank has studied the subject of crime thoroughly, and one of their report writers believes that the real root causes for much of our crime has to do with the breakdown of marriage, the family, and the community. In their report “The Real Root Causes of Violent Crime: The Breakdown of Marriage, Family, and Community,” Fagan lists several pieces of information about correlations between certain issues and the crime rate. Even though this report is already almost two decades old, it hits the nail on the head. Below are some of the statements this report makes concerning some of the correlations connected with criminal activity, including some occasional added commentary:
- Children born illegitimately are more likely to commit violent crimes than those born legitimately.
- There is a connection between lack of parental attachment and violent crime.
- A rise in violent crime over the previous thirty years correlates to a rise in fatherlessness, and high-crime neighborhoods are characterized by single-parent households with no father. The role of fatherlessness in criminal activity will be discussed later.
- Across the country, a 10% increase in fatherless homes correlates to a 17% increase in juvenile crime.
- The type of aggression and hostility usually seen in adult criminals can be seen, or foreshadowed, in those same people earlier in their lives, such as by unusual aggressiveness seen as early as 5 or 6 years of age.
- A neighborhood with a high-degree of religious practice is usually not a high-crime area, whereas a neighborhood whose dwellers have low levels of religious practice correlates to a higher level of crime. This may be because religion has traditionally been a strong influence on the moral behavior and aptitude of those who practice its tenets.
- While looking into specific neighborhoods that are considered high-crime areas, 90% of children raised in a safe and stable home environment (proper parental supervision and lack of parental strife) avoid criminal activity, whereas only 10% of children raised in an unsafe and unstable home environment avoid criminal activity.
- If a person who has been a habitual criminal matures to the point of maintaining a stable marriage, this parallels a gradual decrease in criminal activity by the same person.
- Having both a mother’s strong affectionate attachment, and a father’s authority and involvement, in a child’s life seems to be the most important buffer against that child having a future life of crime. “At the extreme, and a more common situation in America’s inner cities, the distant relationship between a mother and child can become an abusing and neglectful relationship. One article…suggests that 60% of all child abuse happens at the behest of a single mother, and much of the other 40% happens at the hands of her boyfriend or stepfather. Under such conditions the child is at risk of becoming a psychopath.”
- Policymakers in Washington tend to look at crime in purely materialistic terms, seeing crime as caused by a lack of employment opportunities and a shortage in adequately funded social programs, when, in fact, they should be looking at moral failure, lack of practicing personal responsibility, and having family and community relationships based on love, respect, and attachment to each other and to a common code of conduct. Why? Because these things tend to heavily influence a person’s behavior and moral choices, including choices to follow peer pressure into criminal activity or substance abuse.
- Between 1965 and 1995, welfare expenditures by the government continued to grow until by 1995 it was 8 times what it was in 1965, whereas the number of felonies per capita rose three-fold in the same time period, suggesting that this program, meant to reduce the environment that causes crime, has really been an all-out failure, and has actually lead to the type of environment that produces crime.
- Poverty is not the chief cause of crime, as crime actually grew during periods of economic growth, including the periods 1905-33 and 1965-74, and actually decreased during periods of economic decline, including the Great Depression and the recession of 1982. During the 1960’s, as the economy was growing, and there were an ever-increasing amount of government jobs made available to inner-city dwellers, homicides rose 43%. In fact, as the 2008-2009 recessionary period enveloped us, and seven million jobs were lost, it was estimated that crime would skyrocket, but it, instead, dropped to the lowest levels since the early 1960’s – in the first half of 2009 alone, the nationwide homicide rate dropped 10%, violent crimes dropped 4.4%, property crimes dropped over 6%, and car thefts were down 19%.
- The welfare system was originally thought to be a good thing that helped people in need, including single mothers, but when the system stipulates that, as a single mother, that you must stay unemployed, and not get married, especially to an employed male, to continue to receive welfare checks, the financial incentives to these single mothers hindered the creation of intact families and a proper work ethic. By creating unintended incentives that propagated the conditions that correlate with crime, the state was actually facilitating the long term rise in the rate of crime.
This information, like I said, comes from a conservative think tank, which means that it tends to be ignored by people on the political left. The truth, though, is that this think tank hits the nail on the head, in that an intact nuclear family, stable home environment, and fatherhood have a lot to do with influencing future social behavior in the up-and-coming generation.
A father that goes to work each day, knows how to treat his wife and children and other members of the community, stays out of trouble, and knows how to handle his finances well, has a very, very powerful influence on his children’s, particularly his sons’, behavior, than anything else in society. Thus, it does much to reduce the expression of the six major reasons why people commit crimes. A good role model, right in the same house, who shows that he personally cares about the child’s well-being, is so much more successful at developing a child’s future behavior that it makes all government programs that try to influence a child’s behavior look worthless in comparison.
This brings us to the second root cause for crime.
Root Cause Number Two: Fatherlessness
According to one article* in a French-Canadian journal, there are several correlations between fatherlessness and different societal problems, including many urban crime problems. (*MacRae, D. June 10, 2000. The Root Causes of Crime. Le Quebecois Libre)
Among the many social problems and criminal activity problems associated with fatherlessness are the following facts:
- 60% of all child abuse is caused by mothers with sole custody of their children.
- 85% of all behavioral disorders are found in children who lived in fatherless homes; they are 20 times more likely to have behavioral disorders.
- 90% of all runaway children came from fatherless homes; they are 32 times more likely to run away.
- 80% of all rapists, who acted out of displaced anger, came from fatherless homes.
- 70% of juveniles in juvenile detention centers came from fatherless homes.
- 85% of the youths sitting in prison came from fatherless homes.
- Fatherless children are 5 times more likely to commit suicide.
- Fatherless children are 14 times more likely to commit rape.
- Fatherless children are 9 times more likely to drop out of high school.
- Fatherless children are 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances.
- Fatherless children are 9 times more likely to end up in a mental institution.
- Fatherless children are 20 times more likely to end up in prison.
Obviously, there would need to be some people performing social ills who come from homes with fathers present or you wouldn’t have the control factor for comparison, but you can hopefully still see the tremendous difference in behavior between those who have a father present in their lives and those that don’t.
Conclusion
So, the breakdown of the traditional nuclear family and community, and the lack of healthy marriages represents one of the two major root causes behind why people commit crime. Fatherlessness represents the other major root cause, especially among young men who grow up impoverished.
If you’re in the black community, and you complain about your high incarceration rate, you need to realize that is based on your high crime rate. And if you want to lower your crime rates, and thus lower your incarceration rates, then you need to work on the fatherlessness, lack of nuclear families, and broken homes and communities that are so rampant within the black community.
Unfortunately, you don’t do that. In fact, you vilify anyone who suggests such things as if we’re the bad guys for doing so, even though that it the solution. And what is up with the Black Lives Matter movement wanting to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family” as if working against that will make black lives matter more, which it won’t?
