The biggest root cause of crime is fatherlessness | Hacker News Reader

The biggest root cause of crime is fatherlessness

wsj.com

41 pointsthelastgallon77 comments

Years ago, my dad owned and rented out some Section 8 houses in the hood. Tenants were single moms on welfare with usually 3 to 4 young kids.

Many times he'd knock on the front door after a call to fix the toilet or some such repair, be told to hang on for a sec, and a man would try to run out the back door and disappear.

This was the baby daddy (or a prospective one) being shooed out by the mom, because his presence was a risk to the single mom's welfare checks.

Hard to improve when the incentives are against it.

I was led to believe that Clinton ended "welfare as we know it" to address that sort of thing. I wonder what your preferred solution is? Because it always seems to be something to the effect of "just get rid of welfare" which seems like it might be a bit hard on the kids as well.

My solution is UBI. Ditch welfare as we know it. Ditch the requirements, and all the bureaucratic administration fees and salaries that go with them, and that would free up enough money for proper UBI.

Somehow I doubt that the WSJ has this solution in mind.

The problem with UBI is that once it's instituted, even if financial or other circumstances radically change, it will be politically suicidal to remove it. If it doesn't work well, if it's counterproductive, if anything turns out to be unworkable... tough, no politician can survive going against free money for everyone.

That's a fundamental problem with such a... generous program. I'm not even going to get into the sheer pull factor for immigration it would create, and that pull would skew towards people who are both destitute and not likely to work.

Buy Bitcoin and advocate for UBI!

Just rebrand UBI as “Social Security for All Who Want It”.

For sure, the benefits cliff is a huge flaw in our social safety net. We should direct massively more resources to create a comprehensive social benefits program that covers a wide range of social strata with both goods and services, either subsidized or at-cost.

At this point, it 's more likely that we should actually just get rid of most of the social safety net and instead concentrate on severely limiting market power abuses so stuff doesn't get so insanely priced that people can't afford it.

When you have as much government as we currently have, we need to very seriously consider getting rid of government as the solution to a particular problem, rather than more government.

Government isn't sand, I don't think it's productive to talk about "more" or "less" of it. I think it's more appropriate to talk about the expense/benefit ratio of tax dollars which in the US is clearly not great. Correction to that ratio seems like it could come from lots of directions, but I don't think just cutting services and trying to prevent market monopolization is going to get you all the way there, or even kind of close. Producing "affordability" is going to require ensuring that people have access to cheap healthcare, cheap transit, cheap power, cheap delivery networks, etc. All of these are things which benefit greatly from economies of scale, and which a state can effectively (and prudently) provide. There's plenty of examples worldwide, the US is just in a Reaganite hangover.

In this case it is appropriate to talk about more or less government because you were arguing for a large expansion of government via comprehensive redistribution schemes. The problem is "producing affordability" is only from economies of scale sometimes and the situation is actually dramatically more complex because the other thing that benefits from economies of scale is market power accumulation, both public and private, which is the real driver of the expensiveness of many of the things you mention, it certainly is for healthcare, transit, and power in the US context.

How did they get the idea that their landlord observing a guest would impact their benefits?

The anecdote doesn't imply that the tenant with the HUD vouchers believed this, it only suggests this is the interpretation that Landlord Dad promulgated to the kids around the dinner table.

It's not the landlord they were worried about. They expected visits from the housing authority who sometimes check up on the tenants.

The biggest one is when taking section 8 is you aren't allowed to have guests staying for more than 14 days.

This was off Troost in KC circa 2005.

The landlord and section 8 have to communicate about certain things, doubt they would lie for the tenant.

Is there something specific the landlord would have to communicate?

Yes, every year the landlord must "recertify" the tenant which entails listing everyone living in the rental and what their incomes are. Rent is 30% of this income minus medical expenses.

So if the landlord sees someone that the lessee identifies as a guest during a visit not related to that certification, are they (the landlord) somehow on the hook for investigating the residency status of that guest? Or can they just fix the sink and go on home?

I actually don't know the details of the landlord's obligations (besides putting info into forms, then having tenant sign the forms) but a guest is supposed to stay only a limited number of nights per year.

Yeah, I figured that was the case.

I only know a little bit second hand but I wouldn't be surprised, from what I understand each side has obligations to meet in the deal and the status can be lost on either side. Its also gonna depend on the state

Ah the old "welfare queen" trope. That's a lot of anecdotal speculation where I think the reality is probably a lot more complex in a chicken-or-the-egg type of way.

Have you ever lived in apartment complexes or neighborhoods with a lot of section 8 housing?

Lesson: Landlords look down on their tenants.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudine_(film)

> ... Throughout the film, Miss Kabak, a social worker, visits Claudine at her home and asks her if she is employed and if she is dating anyone. Claudine always claims to be unemployed and single, to make sure to get the maximum amount of benefits, which she desperately needs. If Claudine has a job or dates anyone and receives gifts from her boyfriend, the social worker has to deduct any money or gifts from her benefits, forcing Claudine to lie.

This movie was released in 1974. Though fiction, it's one of the examples used when people say that when government gets involved ($$$), it moves slow and breaks things for a long time.

I think people will always try to game/pervert a system, and unfortunately we all will have to suffer the consequences. For now.

That's not the problem though is it? I'd call it a distraction.

I know someone playing this sort of game. She's collecting benefits even though she's living with her children's father; indeed he's supporting her and the children.

Whatever I may think of this the children are in a stable 2 parent family. Other then having a mother whose ethics are (again in my view) open to question I don't think the children are any worse off then comparable children who's parents are married and not receiving any sort of assistance.

As odd as it sounds the real trouble is for children who are genuinely - being raised by a single mother - in the situation.

The article headline prefaces this with "Opinion", perhaps the headline here should as well?

Isn't the domain enough of a flag?

No, it is not, and we are quite sure of this. The fatherhood correlation never survives any control for family-level factors, like comparing siblings or looking at kids who lose their father to accidents. And none of the evidence cited by OP addresses this or provides real evidence of causality, much less hyperbolic claims of it being biggest.

Do you have any evidence to back up your claims?

I have yet to be convinced otherwise.

Well the evidence is actually in the white paper that the article is about. Amazingly, in the white paper the correlation between crimes and single parent households is one of the weakest. The strongest by far is poverty.

It must have taken quite some guts and determination to spin this into a story that claims that fatherlessness is the root cause of crime. But it makes sense if you check who the authors of the paper and of the WSJ article are.

Please have a look if you want to be convinced: See https://ifstudies.org/ifs-admin/resources/reports/ifs-strong... table 2 and 3.

The paper referenced by the article actually shows what the author is saying is false. He is either very confused or convinced that nobody will read the linked paper so he can make up what he wants.

This theory only works if you narrowly construe crime to exclude large-scale white collar crimes like attempting to overthrow the government, poisoning the whole nation with addictive painkillers, dodging taxes, etc. It's pretty clear that on a crime-weighted basis the root cause of virtually all crimes is being born rich.

That's an excellent point. There's a survivorship bias here. Perhaps fatherlessness doesn't cause crime so much as it makes you more vulnerable to the criminal justice system.

Or be a rapist.

Hmm. Did Donald Trump have a father growing up?

How many crimes did Bernie Maddof commit ?

How many crimes do local police officers commit ?

Are people in possession of federally illegal drugs committing a crime ?

Did they have fathers?

Mods, add Opinion to the title.

https://archive.is/A25Lp

[flagged]

Why do you consider the opinion voiced in the article to be a "stupid opinion"?

I edited my original comment to expound. The "evidence" he cites is incredibly thin, in my professional opinion.

Because correlation does not imply causation.

But if one factor correlates more with crime than all the others, it sure looks like that one is the cause.

Can I use this comment (anonymized of course) as example in the next course I teach on regression stats? Because it's the exact opposite of how you're supposed to do regression inference. Selecting feature sets by beta alone is a recipe for disaster.

Consider the following example:

A + B => Y (one A and one B causes one Y) A => 2Z (two A causes one Z)

If you have a data set featuring B, Z, and Y then a regression analysis will yield that Y = 2Z + B, and you would conclude that Z is "a root cause" of Y over B. However, by construction Z has no causal effect on Y, only B does. This is literally the point of "correlation does not imply causation".

Moreover, the white-paper the op-ed author is citing [0] doesn't even have "fatherlessness" as the most correlated variable: it's poverty across the board (and by a lot). Even if your argument was sound it wouldn't be correct.

[0] https://ifstudies.org/ifs-admin/resources/reports/ifs-strong... Tables 2 and 3

Thank you, I should have read the white paper better, you are right, the correlation with single parent households is actually one of the weakest.

By the way, do I read correctly from the regression analysis stats, that "single young men age 15-29" is -negatively- correlated with all categories of crime?

Yes, that’s correct. Mixed significance pattern and wide-ish SEs so a little challenging to make claims across crime types IMO.

This demo tends to commit the most recorded crimes, which means that they’re getting arrested or murdered. Presumably in an area where lots of crimes are occurring the corresponding increase in arrests and murders leads to lower population counts on the US Census (which I believe was their source of truth on demo stuff).

Well, whether or not fatherlessness is the actual cause (and I believe there is abundant evidence that it is), it seems very likely that partially rewinding the societal changes that have led to widespread fatherlessness are going to have a positive effect on crime. And yes, I'm talking about the sexual revolution.

I see your extended response now. Well, I'm happy to do some ironclad moralization.

More fool you

"Whether or not we correctly understand the root causes of X, it seems likely that doing Y will clearly reduce it". I can't change your beliefs, but you have to understand how foolish this sounds to me. If you think the sexual revolution causes crime then just say that. I personally think it's ludicrous, but at least do me the decency of stating your conflicting opinion instead of trying to sidestep the point that this op-ed is fluff.

Its almost as if being on the precarious end of a precarious system lets down the most vulnerable.

This is easy to falsify; lesbian parents exist, how do their kids rank? Study after study has found little difference in outcomes.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-sexual-continuum...

Fatherless-ness in those

Various studies have analyzed personality data written by teachers, managers, etc of kids raised by straight parents and kids raised by lesbians. Kids of lesbians self report fewer instances of anxiety to their teachers and other non-parental mentors. Those non-parental mentors register in their teachers notes, or medical notes, similar sentiments; trained professionals see fewer outbursts in kids raises by lesbians.

Personally, will categorize this as “ossified mind parrots memorized social script, film at 11”

What’s most likely is economic instability and too little quality mentorship overall leave people feeling crime is their only option.

It's good to read at least as far as the sub-headline:

> Children are likelier to finish high school and stay out of trouble if they’re brought up by two parents.

Article goes on to talk about 2 parent families.

Kids of gay couples do better than kids of straight couples because it’s a really clear choice for gay couples to become parents.

About 70% of children to heterosexual couples are unplanned.

And poverty is the biggest root cause of fatherlessness.

But of course, the WSJ would never want to admit that massive wealth inequality has negative consequences...

If you believe the reason some children are fatherless is because a hedge fund manager owns a jet, you're reaching.

It’s not that the own a jet, it’s the fact that financial capitalism extracts money from people through rentier economics that enable them to make such exorbitant profits so they can afford to buy a jet.

How about the idea that the people working at the dollar store or walmart are making poverty wages while the leadership team hoovers up all the profits? The UAW went on strike this year because the auto makers returned to huge profitability and wanted to keep the concessions the workers gave to keep the manufacturers afloat during the hard times once the hard times were over.

So, yes, it’s not that big of a reach to say that some children are fatherless because the money that might have gone into their parents’ pockets is going to pay for that hedge fund manager’s jet.

If you take a quarter for each person and give it to an executive as additional compensation, the executive will experience a 250/hr increase in pay given a 1000 employee company, and the individual will experience only a loss of 25 cents. Cut executive compensation by that much and they will leave. Heck, cut it by half as much and they will do so. Aside from that, research shows that executive compensation issues are down to the conflict of interest that boards and CEOs have, since the CEO hires the compensation analysts for the board. Hedge funds doing 'vulture capitalism' or stripping the equity from a company without a bias towards a going concern is not down to Jets. Its down to the regulatory environment incentivizing companies to do so.

Could you give some more insight on this?

If you ever been poor, you don’t understand the stress that money puts on a relationship. And that’s just to start with. Poverty also increases stress which increases a likeliness to use drugs to combat the stress. Also, as other people pointed out, it’s most times more economic feasible for people in poverty not to get married because they would be penalized by getting married.

Poverty causes stress and stress causes aberrant behavior.

I might qualify this to say that poverty without spirituality causes fatherlessness.

if poverty is the cause of divorces/families breaking up then why does the US (a developed country) have one of the highest divorce rates?

Because most people who seem wealthy have a lot of money issues as well. And divorce is not only caused by poverty. For example, Christianity looks down on divorce and there are fewer Christians in the US.

But this proves the lead point that fatherlessness does not cause crime, poverty does.

> I might qualify this to say that poverty without spirituality causes fatherlessness.

That’s a bold statement.

I know, right? It’s bold to say that not focusing on materialism as the route to happiness could mean that people in poverty might not suffer as much.

I think you are swapping cause and effect here.

You forgot to add any links for this blanket statement.

In the world where everyone’s racing to get more money, it’s amazing that people can still think money doesn’t matter.

“Wealth may increase marital stability through its material value, providing couples with economic resources they can use to improve their marital quality, thereby lowering their divorce risk.”

https://read.dukeupress.edu/demography/article/60/1/147/3428...

I don't quite follow you.

Is that because mothers wealthy enough not to be on welfare don't need to stay single to stay on welfare?

Probably because well-off people tend to marry other well-off people, and don't tend to marry either single mothers or those in the precariat, let alone those who are both at the same time?

You know, every time I see articles like this from a conservative outlet, I always wonder what they want to do about it. It's not like they believe in government action to solve collective problems. Perhaps they should encourage their wealthy readership (I believe the median income of a WSJ reader is quite high) to marry these women who do not have fathers for their children?

I believe this site is populated my males with reasonable to high incomes (I could probably be said to fit that description somewhat) - maybe we should encourage the single ones among us to find single mothers to marry in order to help solve the problem?

I suppose I'm being absurd, but what is the endgame of these articles? I suspect it's just to shame single mothers (as though the party of Donald Trump has any room to try and shame others). I doubt the vast majority of single mothers explicitly planned to end up that way.

The party of Donald Trump didn't break Texas and Florida schools like California and New York did

It’s pretty hard to break something that was already broken. But I’m guessing you have an ideological point to make?

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