And to quote her or Sowell… or Skinner for what it is worth… if you reward a behaviour it will continue.

While this link between illegitimacy and chronic welfare dependency now is better understood, policymakers also need to appreciate another strong and disturbing pattern evident in scholarly studies: the link between illegitimacy and violent crime and between the lack of parental attachment and violent crime. Without an understanding of the root causes of criminal behavior — how criminals are formed — Members of Congress and state legislators cannot understand why whole sectors of society, particularly in urban areas, are being torn apart by crime. And without that knowledge, sound policymaking is impossible.

A review of the empirical evidence in the professional literature of the social sciences gives policymakers an insight into the root causes of crime. Consider, for instance:

* Over the past thirty years, the rise in violent crime parallels the rise in families abandoned by fathers.

* High-crime neighborhoods are characterized by high concentrations of families abandoned by fathers.

* State-by-state analysis by Heritage scholars indicates that a 10 percent increase in the percentage of children living in single-parent homes leads typically to a 17 percent increase in juvenile crime.

* The rate of violent teenage crime corresponds with the number of families abandoned by fathers.

* The type of aggression and hostility demonstrated by a future criminal often is foreshadowed in unusual aggressiveness as early as age five or six.

* The future criminal tends to be an individual rejected by other children as early as the first grade who goes on to form his own group of friends, often the future delinquent gang.

On the other hand:

* Neighborhoods with a high degree of religious practice are not high-crime neighborhoods.

* Even in high-crime inner-city neighborhoods, well over 90 percent of children from safe, stable homes do not become delinquents. By contrast only 10 percent of children from unsafe, unstable homes in these neighborhoods avoid crime.

* Criminals capable of sustaining marriage gradually move away from a life of crime after they get married.

* The mother’s strong affectionate attachment to her child is the child’s best buffer against a life of crime.

* The father’s authority and involvement in raising his children are also a great buffer against a life of crime.

The scholarly evidence, in short, suggests that at the heart of the explosion of crime in America is the loss of the capacity of fathers and mothers to be responsible in caring for the children they bring into the world. This loss of love and guidance at the intimate levels of marriage and family has broad social consequences for children and for the wider community. The empirical evidence shows that too many young men and women from broken families tend to have a much weaker sense of connection with their neighborhood and are prone to exploit its members to satisfy their unmet needs or desires.

via The Real Root Causes of Violent Crime:  The Breakdown of Marriage, Family, and Community.