Juvenile Offenders and Victims Report

The 2006 report seems to be the latest on line and in print. The print copy check-in date for OSUL gov docs is April 19, 2006, so I don't know if there is a more recent one. If you've never seen the report before, it looks alarming, however, it says that juvenile crime has been decreasing since 1994, and is the lowest since the 1970s. That's good. The crime for females is increasing, especially assault. That's not good. The report confirms the importance of in tact families--fathers in the home and mothers of the children married to the children's father.

A recent study by McCurley and Snyder explored the relationship between family structure and self-reported problem behaviors. The central finding was that youth ages 12–17 who lived in families with both biological parents were, in general, less likely than youth in other families to report a variety of problem behaviors, such as running away from home, sexual activity, major theft, assault, and arrest. The family structure effect was seen within groups defined by age, gender, or race/ethnicity. In fact, this study found that family structure was a better predictor of these problem behaviors than race or ethnicity. Chapter one

Perhaps the entertainment industry, which glamorizes single parenthood, promiscuity, disfunctional families, and irresponsibile behavior, needs to foot the bill for this? If Congress wants to levy special taxes on groups that cost the taxpayer money, how about the entertainment industry?

The annual birth rate for females ages 15-19 declined substantially between 1950 and 2000, while the proportion of these births that were to unmarried women increased. In 1950, 13% of all births to females ages 15-19 were to unmarried women. By 2000, this proportion had increased to 79%. Even knowing all the problems this brings, from poverty to low birth weight to crime to poor health to less education, women both educated and unschooled, both poor and well off, continue to pursue motherhood without marriage. Here's a mystified reporter on ABC, clueless:

The birth rate rose slightly for women of all ages, and births to unwed mothers reached an all-time high of about 40 percent, continuing a trend that started years ago. More than three-quarters of these women were 20 or older. For a variety of reasons, it's become more acceptable for women to have babies without a husband, said Duke University's S. Philip Morgan, a leading fertility researcher.

I wonder if he's turned on the TV recently? And to think they ridiculed Dan Quayle. Wouldn't Murphy be a grandmother by now, based on statistics?