Crime and fatherless homes are directly related

Heather McDonald in City Journal reports on what has happened in Chicago since the September 2009 death of  16-year-old Derrion Albert, when his attack was caught on video and spread across the internet.  The federal government and social workers responded as they've learned to do with a $40 million dollar federal grant for "at risk males."  But that's not what they need.  They need married fathers. Since Albert’s death, 78 more youth under the age of 19 have been killed in Chicago, overwhelmingly in black-on-black shootings.

In every American city, the disproportionate black-illegitimacy rate is matched only by the disproportionate black crime rate. In Chicago, blacks, at least 35 percent of the population, commit 76 percent of all homicides; whites, about 28 percent of the population, commit 4 percent. In New York City, blacks, 24 percent of the population, commit 80 percent of all shootings; whites, 35 percent of the population, commit less than 2 percent of all shootings. The black illegitimacy rate in New York is over 78 percent; the white illegitimacy rate in the city is 7 percent. The national rate of homicide commission for black males between the ages of 14 and 17 is ten times higher than that of “whites,” into which category the federal government puts the vast majority of Hispanics.

Of all the problems we face as a nation, this one seem insoluable to me. I certainly don't think the government can change this, but it sure did help create it, beginning with Johnson's War on Poverty which is when the out of wedlock birth rate began to soar for both blacks and whites. Slight reversal with the 1996 Welfare Reform (begun in 1994) intended to strengthen families and marriage, but was maligned by the press as "War on Welfare Mothers." It had a side affect of reducing illegal immigration and did increase marriage, resulting in more children living with their fathers. Gradually, other federal and state programs were added back in like SCHIP. It did result in reducing case loads for agencies and possibly some lost jobs or transfers.