THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 30, 1995 TAG: 9504280002
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
The lessening of violent crime - murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault - in Hampton Roads, Richmond and elsewhere is a gratifying development. The challenge is to keep the decline going.
The decline is attributable to a shrinking percentage of crime-prone youths, cooperation between neighborhoods and police, continuing increases in the imprisoned population, the successes of Crime Line programs, the proliferation of electronic security systems and other anti-crime measures.
The violent-crime rate in Hampton Roads during the first three months of 1995 was 2.4 percent below that in the comparable 1994 quarter. The drop in some cities was sharp: 27 percent in Newport News, 20 percent in Richmond, 14 percent in Norfolk, 13 percent in Hampton. Virginia Beach recorded a 7 percent violent-crime decline.
Bucking the tide were Suffolk and Chesapeake, where violent crime was up 9 percent and 5 percent, respectively.
But the downturn almost certainly will be temporary, unless Americans make heroic efforts at prevention. That means directing private-sector resources as well as public ones to strengthen families, nurture and educate children and foster community.
Teenagers and young adults are destined to grow in numbers again over the next several years. These age groups provide disproportionately large percentages of criminals.
That 19 million American children are growing up in homes without fathers assures trouble. Children in single-parent households are markedly more likely than children in two-parent households to be poor, to do poorly in school and to be unemployed, on welfare or in prison as adults.
Do we just sit back and let the wave roll over us? Not if we're smart. But what do we do, other than wring our hands?
The bipartisan Council on Families in America proposes that society begin by championing marriage and two-parent families as, on average, better for children and the rest of us than single parenthood. The evidence supporting that proposition is overwhelming.
The percentage of children living in single-parent households has quadrupled since 1950, when the rates of divorce (difficult to obtain back then) and out-of-wedlock births (which society stigmatized) were significantly lower than today. The decline in two-parent households has been catastrophic for tens of millions of American children and for the United States.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation, which also deplores the decrease in two-parent families, links the rise in single parenting to the dramatic drop in income for young men with a high-school education or less. The foundation calls for greater investment in education.
There's no sure fix, much less a quick one. But even if there is disagreement on answers, this much is certain: We must focus on children - and children benefit from exposure to positive male role models. by CNB