Despite the convincing evidence, our judges routinely condemn children of divorced parents to much higher rates of personal and social problems:
Children from fatherless homes account for:
63% of youth suicides. (Source: US Dept. of Health & Human Services, Bureau of the Census).
71% of pregnant teenagers. (Source: US Dept. of Health & Human Services)
90% of all homeless and runaway children. (Source: US Dept. of Health & Human Services)
70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes (Source: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Special Report, Sept 1988)
85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders. (Source: Center for Disease Control).
80% of rapists motivated with displaced anger. (Source: Criminal Justice & Behavior, Vol. 14, p. 403-26, 1978).
71% of all high school dropouts. (Source: National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools).
75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers. (Source: Rainbows for all God`s Children).
85% of all youths sitting in prisons. (Source: Fulton Co. Georgia jail populations, Texas Dept. of Corrections 1992).
In addition, children of divorced families who do NOT have regular and meaningful contact with their father denied are at much higher risk for incarceration (jail), psychiatric illness, child abuse, and even death.
Fatherless youth at higher risk for jail - study
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Young men who grow up in homes without fathers are twice as likely to end up in jail as those who come from traditional two-parent families, according to a new study released Thursday.
Cynthia Harper of the University of Pennsylvania and Sara S. McLanahan of Princeton University tracked a sample of 6,000 males aged 14-22 from 1979-93.
They found that those boys whose fathers were absent from the household had double the odds of being incarcerated -- even when other factors such as race, income, parent education and urban residence were held constant.
Surprisingly, those boys who grow up with a step-father in the home were at even higher risk for incarceration, roughly three times that of children who remain with both of their natural parents, according to a study being presented at a meeting of the American Sociological Association Friday.
``Remarriage of parents doesn't help,'' Harper said. ``A step-parent in the household doesn't erase the father absent problem.''
The sociologists launched their study in an effort to shed new light on the increase of youth violence between the late 1980's and early 1990's.
``It has become a lot less unusual for youth to become involved in violent crime,'' Harper said. ``I wanted to see if there was any connection between youth violence and major family changes that have occurred over the last few decades.''
Overall, the U.S. youth crime rate rose by 43 percent between 1989 and 1993. Since then, however, the youth violent crime rate dropped by about 25 percent, according to Justice Department figures.
Officials have credited the drop, which mirrored a wider drop in overall crime rates, in part to new community policing initiatives and tougher penalties for youth crime.
Still, juveniles accounted for nearly one out of five arrests for violent crimes in 1996. And youths aged 12 to 17 were three times as likely as adults to be victims of a violent crime in 1994, Justice Department figures show.
Incarceration can lead to further crime, according to specialists. A 1997 study at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, found that juveniles who went to jail were twice as likely to commit another crime than those who were sent to a alternative programs.
The study of 271 at-risk youths also found that the juveniles sent to jail were three times more likely to commit a violent crime than those sent to other programs.
Harper and McLanahan's study found that young men whose parents part ways during their adolescence were roughly 1-1/2 times as likely to end up in jail as children from intact families -- faring slightly better than boys who are born to single mothers.
It also found that, while whites have lower rates of father absenteeism than blacks, when families do split white youth are at a higher risk of incarceration than their black peers.
Child support payments did not appear to make a significant difference in the odds of incarceration, but the presence of live-in grandparents in households without fathers ``appears to help improve youths' chances of avoiding incarceration,'' the study found.
Copyright © 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Early parental loss a risk factor for adult psychiatric illness
Children who lose a parent early in life, either by death or permanent separation, appear more likely than others to develop schizophrenia, depression or bipolar disorder as adults. The finding comes from a large Israeli case-control study involving nearly 80 patients each with major depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia and an equal number of healthy controls. Study director, Dr. B. Lerer of Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem, Israel, and a multicenter team found that the rates of parental loss during childhood were significantly higher among patients with psychiatric disorders in this population than in controls. Specifically, loss of a parent during childhood significantly increased the risk of major depression in adulthood by 3.8-fold, according to a report in the February 13th issue of Molecular Psychiatry. Parental loss during childhood was 2.6 times more likely in participants with bipolar disorder and 3.8 times more likely in those with schizophrenia compared with controls. The effect of parental loss on the development of psychiatric disorders was more striking if the loss was due to permanent separation rather than death, and if the loss occurred before the age of 9 years. And, "[although not significant in this analysis, loss of mother had a stronger effect than loss of father in patients with [major depression], as did loss of both parents," Dr. Lerer and others note. Early parental loss also significantly increased the risks of smoking, physical illness, divorce, lower income and living alone in later life. The findings add early parental loss to the list of known environmental factors that increase susceptibility to major depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. In fact, the Israeli team speculates that early parental loss may be a nonspecific risk factor for psychiatric illness in adulthood, with a degree of specificity for major depression and schizophrenia. One possible explanation for this association, they propose, is that early parental loss negatively effects responsiveness to stress in adulthood. In a related editorial, Dr. C. B. Nemeroff, of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, comments that the findings add to accumulating evidence that "...untoward life events early in life... appear to increase vulnerability to several major psychiatric disorders including affective and anxiety disorders." Such "untoward events" include both parental loss and child abuse and neglect, he notes. "Perhaps these data will lend support for the call for a national study of the prevalence rate of child abuse and neglect," Dr. Nemeroff hopes. He adds, "We owe it to our patients, our children and ourselves."
Copyright (c) 1999 Reuters Reproduced under the Fair Use exceptions of 17 U.S.C. 107
Child Abuse and Death
The Heritage Foundation report, "The Child Abuse Crisis: The Disintegration of Marriage, Family, and the American Community," May 15, 1997 notes that: "[due to] ... the disintegration of family and community ... America's infants and young children, about 2,000 of whom -- 6 per day -- die each year," and provides the following estimate:
Total Children Killed Per Year: 2,000
Killed by Mothers 1,100 (55.0%)
Killed by live-in boyfriends 0513 ( 25.7%)
Killed by Stepfathers 0250 (12.5%)
Killed by Biological Fathers 0137 (6.9%)
This study demonstrates that the least dangerous place for a child after divorce is with the father by a margin of over 14 to 1 ( 2000 / 137 = 14.5985 ).
Stepfathers and live-in boyfriends are associated with the mother's household and therefore a child is 14 times more likely to be killed in the mother's care.
Excluding Stepfathers and Live-in boyfriends, mothers are 8 times as likely to kill a child than the biological father.
CHILD ABUSE INJURIES:
Almost 1 million children were the victims of substantiated or indicated child abuse and neglect in 1996, an approximate 18 percent increase since 1990. Each year over 18,000 children are permanently disabled by abusers. For comparison, the number of adults disabled by spouse abuse is less than one dozen. Child Maltreatment 1996: Reports from the States to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System , U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1998). Seventy-seven percent of perpetrators of child maltreatment were parents, an additional 11 percent were other relatives. Over 80 percent of all perpetrators were under age 40. Over two-thirds were mothers. Three-quarters of neglect and medical neglect cases were associated with mother perpetrators as were almost three-quarters of sexual abuse. http://www.acfc.org/study/dhhs1.htm
Single Mother Households (SMH) - the most dangerous living arrangement
In Single Mother Households, 422 children are fatally abused each year.
In Single Father Households, 25 children are fatally abused each year.
In Dual Parent Families, 16 children are fatally abused each year.
430 children are killed by firearm accidents each year
322 are killed in Single Mother Households (SMH).
Single Mother Households account for over 70% of fatal child abuse and accidental firearm deaths.
Source: Donna Shalala, "National Child Abuse Prevention Month" and "Child Maltreatment 1994: Reports to the National Center on Child Abuse". http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb/stats/ncands96/index.htm.
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