Youth Crime in Chicago (And the Nation)

Several days ago, a sixteen year-old was beaten to death in the Roseland community on Chicago's South side. People around the world have seen tape on their local news station or the Internet. When I saw the tape, I was shocked, mad, and finally, sad. For those of you not familiar with the Chicagoland area, Roseland was once a beautiful, thriving community with tree-lined houses and many, many roses. So many roses, that the neighborhood took on the name, "Roseland."

Today, the tree-lined streets have been replaced by broken beer bottles and shell casings. And the red roses have been surpassed by the red blood of many young people who have been murdered by gang warfare. The beating death of Derrion Albert has once again put the spotlight on youth violence in Chicago -- and particularly school-based violence. For the last four years in the city, an average of 32 teens have been killed every school year (most by gun violence at the hands of a gang member).

Many pundits, politicians, clergy, and school officials have weighed in on Chicago's crime problem and have listed the common ailments: no jobs in the community, lack of programs for youth, community apathy and the like. Many point to rap music as the culprit, and a case could be made to blame gangsta' rap, but each generation has battled with the music art form of the day (from Rock N' Roll to Disco). The essential question is do we have critical-thinking adults in the household who can help children and youth decipher and understand the music they listen to while also helping them reject images/lyrics that are harmful? There lies the problem and challenge.

But I submit to you that Chicago's (youth) violence problem has other roots ... roots that have festered for many years and now they are breaking through the surface and won't go away, like those troublesome weeds you can never get rid of in your garden or flower bed because you failed to do your yearly lawn maintenance or perhaps you used a cheaper product that promised a great deal, but didn't deliver.

Chicago too has failed to do its social maintenance or just decided on a cheaper quick fix, when a longer-term investment was needed, much like the efforts that were pulled together for the city's Olympic bid.

Chicago's violence problem, and our nation's social ills, is complex and has many factors, but one constant theme is the deterioration of family support structures. Forty years ago, President Lyndon Johnson's Administration commissioned a study ("The Moynihan Report" -- authored by U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan from New York) about the growing problem of out-of-wedlock births in the black (or as it was called at that time, Negro) community and sound the alarm about impending social problems if nothing is done to decrease the number of out-of-wedlock births in the African American community. The Johnson Administration warned of massive social problems like illiteracy and school drop-out rates, high unemployment, violence, and other problems associated with societies that have discarded marriage while producing children.

Here's an except from the Moynihan Report:

DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN: It seems to me that there are a great many Negro Americans, perhaps half the population is securely in the middle class, doing very well, taking care of itself, needing no help from anybody, thank you very much. But the slums are also filling up with a lower-class people, unemployed, ill-educated, ill-housed, for whom the cycle of no jobs and bad education and bad housing just reproduces itself and takes its most pregnant personal form in the great tragedy of the family lives of these men and women and of their children.

At any given moment, two-thirds of the Negro families are husband-and-wife families. But over the lifetime, only about a little more than a third of Negro children come of 18 having lived all their lives in such a family. And that hurts people. That deprives them of opportunities. Not to have a father, not to have a mother, you've lost something that helps you in life. And so this process feeds back into the cycle.

Today, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, 3 out-of-every 4 African American children are born to unwed parents (predominately to teen mothers)! That statistic is alarming. Whites aren't marrying as much either while producing children (their rate is 1 in 4 and rising).

Today, the concerns of the Johnson Administration are staring us dead in the face ... just like the bullets that take aim at Black and Brown youth every day. There's a price to pay when family structures break down and we all pay with either blood or taxes, and some poor souls pay with both -- the ultimate insult.

For too long, we have ignored that data that suggests that children thrive better in a two-parent household while we have clung to our "have it your way" and "do your own thing" society like the sticky piece of gum you can't get off your shoe. The phrase, "single mom" or "baby's mama" are now lexicons in modern speech. We have 32 year-old grandmothers who proudly plan baby showers for their 16 year-old pregnant daughters and will look at you funny if you don't attend the shower with a nice gift.

We have boys who plant their seed at the house of every girl they know, but when one of those girls becomes pregnant, they reply, "it's not mine."

It does indeed take a village to raise a child but the command center of the village needs two parents who can afford (not rich, but employed) to care for the child and are emotionally mature enough to shoulder the responsibility a cultivating the mind of a child.

So what happens to children who are born into a union of an uneducated and misguided teenage mom and dad? Here are some thought-provoking statistics for you:

• Nearly 60% of all teens who become pregnant are living in poverty at the time of giving birth. National Vital Statistics, 1998.

• Girls who were born to adolescent parents have an 83 percent chance of becoming a mother in her teen years. In addition, she has a 50 percent chance of having an illegitimate child sometime during her lifetime. Maynard, Kids Having Kids

• Statistics say only 77 percent of children born to adolescents will earn their high school diploma. Maynard, Kids Having Kids

• In one study, 54 percent of all teen mothers were high school graduates. Researchers found that if all births had been delayed until age 20, high school completion rates would have risen to 86.4 percent. Advocates For Youth 2000

• "In a study of Illinois Child Protective Service statistics, which are among the best and most comprehensive in the nation, the scholars found that children of adolescent mothers are more than twice as likely to be the victims of abuse and neglect than are the offspring of 20-to-21-year-old moms." Maynard, Kids Having Kids

• Boys born to teen mothers are 2.7 times more likely to end up behind bars than their peers born within a marriage. Maynard, Kids Having Kids

• Studies indicate that more than 70 percent of juveniles in state reform institutions come from fatherless homes. Jennifer E. Marshall, Sanctioning Illegitimacy: Our National Character Is at Stake, Family Research Council. 3/28/97

• It is estimated that a 10 percent increase in illegitimacy rates leads to a 17 percent increase in serious violent crime. Social Breakdown in America

• Construction and maintenance of prisons to house the increasing number of criminals due to teen pregnancies costs about $1 billion. Maynard, Kids Having Kids

• Teenagers account for 30 percent of non-marital births. Women over 20 make up 35 percent of out of wedlock births. Child Trends, New Report Explains Explosion in Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing, 10/20/95

Note: For some of the older data, the numbers have increased exponentially.

If we want to seriously address youth crime in Chicago, or any city big or small, we need to have an open and painfully honest discussion about the broken family structure in America -- particularly in the African American community. This is the clarion call to action and a frantic necessity to heed it.

In addition to jobs, housing, and education, we need human capital to fix our problems and we need to do everything possible to stem the tide of out-of-wedlock births in America.

The concerns expressed by President Lyndon Johnson's Administration in the Moynihan Report are ringing true loud and clear. Here's my question to our policy makers:

Is anyone listening?