I don't believe the parental influence argument. I think economics (that is, being poor) is the biggest cause of delinquency and eventually criminality.
My perspective is colored by my own upbringing. :powerlevel: :powerlevel: I grew up in foster care, in a single parent home. (This is not an argument nor evidence, but just to explain my perspective.)
The head of our household wasn't home very often. She worked most of the day and I was left to my own devices. My socialization came from my peers, in public school. We had lots of benefits from the state, including healthcare and free college tuition if we went to a public school in our state.
We were also under the supervision of a social worker. (We didn't see the social worker very often, maybe a couple of times a year, because we weren't delinquents, but they were at least on the job, even if just officially.)
Now, one way that having two parents is actually useful is that you have two incomes. But that's a bit different from the argument the two-parent-household people seem to be making.
To me, it seems that they're saying that children need to learn morals and how to be an upstanding adult from their parents. I don't buy that. Sitting down with pop to read the bible every afternoon isn't what determines whether or not you join a gang. Being poor as shit is.
Like, the morality argument reminds me of people saying violent video games cause school shootings.
I think if we had all the indigent children live in what amounts to well funded orphanages, a much, much smaller percentage of them would grow up to be criminals. (Not to say I'm proposing that.) Historically, millions of children grew up in boarding schools. They grew up just fine. That's basically the same thing.
Not to say that boarding schools are perfect. Children are annoying little savages, so bullying is pretty rife in boarding schools. Lowering the adult
hild ratio leaves them to their own devices, which leaves a mark, psychologically.
What I would suggest is more accountability for things like welfare and child support. If you're getting $X a month to support your child, your child should be pretty well cared for. It shouldn't be invasive or anything like that. But if you're getting new TVs and iphones every month, while your kid lives on ramen noodles, that sounds a bit like fraud to me.
Also, if your kid is getting arrested, that should be investigated as a child welfare situation. Why is your little shithead getting arrested every other week? Are you fucking up? Quite possibly.
