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Single-Parent Households Increase Crime

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According to the example provided, overall crime rates in North America between 1970 and 1980 were systematically increasing in an upwards fashion. Researchers concluded that the dysfunction of family values was essential to understanding the dramatic escalation. Specifically, they pinpointed to single-parent households and families in which religion had been omitted from daily lifestyles. While this hypothesis may seem structurally sound in reading the information provided, it is lacking in depth. In other words, there is not enough explanation into how the independent variables ultimately connect to the dependent variable (the increase of crime rates). In this paper, I will be putting my knowledge from Criminology 260 per the criteria for …show more content…

The reason for this, is that they lack in using a baseline to represent the families of non-single-parent households. Meaning that, the researchers have not made comparisons to their information regarding single-parent family households and crime to those families that are composed of a mother and father figure. One could further look into the structure of each of these family compositions and find other intervening variables. An example of this could be that families composed of the mother and father figures show high rates of sexual abuse towards the future transgressor, and other traumatizing events that occurred within the family. These are just a few of what may be many examples that could also be considered factors of association to the crime …show more content…

What these researchers have overlooked upon, is the impact that religion had on the families prior to the crimes occurring. There is also conflicting information regarding the temporal order of crime in this case as well. Christopher Hitchens, a researcher and atheist, believes that religion is the motivation of criminal activity. This, according to Hitchens, is a result of fervent religious belief, that in turn causes intolerance in which causes violence. But as with the hypotheses above, Hitchens has also lacked in the burden of proof within his inference. There must always be a baseline in which an analysist can compare two groups of individuals with criminality to the independent variables. If religion is connected as the cause of crime or vise versa, then a researcher must prove as much by showing two groups coming from both sides of the spectrum.
In conclusion, the hypotheses that the researchers have made their claims upon are largely insufficient and lacking in extensive causal areas. I believe that I have brought these issues to light, and have shown with the information I have learned in Criminology 260, the ways in which they could improve upon their

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