As a devastated nation searches for answers in the wake
of the deadly shooting spree in Colorado, a report commissioned
by the Oregon state government offers an unsettling prediction:
The juvenile-crime rate is likely to get worse before
it gets better. In a draft report to the Oregon Progress
Board, due to be released next week, researchers Karmen
Fore and Jerry Kissler forecast a 40 percent surge in
state juvenile arrests in the next decade, from 50,000
today to 70,000 in 2010.
"It's a substantial increase," says Kissler, a professor
of planning, public policy and management at the University
of Oregon.
To arrive at this prediction, Kissler and Fore constructed
a statistical model to examine previous trends. They
found that in each year since 1980 Oregon's juvenile
arrests have been highly correlated to three factors:
"cohort size" (i.e., the number of 15- to 19-year-olds
compared with the rest of the population); the divorce
rate 15 years earlier; and the percentage of births
to unwed mothers 15 years earlier.
Using these three factors, Kissler and Fore were able
to predict the number of juvenile arrests in any given
year with 94 percent accuracy. "It's an amazing statistical
relationship," Kissler says. "I've done a lot of models,
and I've never seen models this accurate."
In a nutshell, the theory is that teens are more likely
to get into trouble when grown-ups aren't paying attention
to them. Large teenage cohorts imply less supervision--there
just aren't enough adults to go around. In addition,
children of divorce and children born out of wedlock
are more likely to be raised by single parents, who
typically have less time to watch their kids.
If Kissler and Fore are right, policy-makers interested
in curbing youth crime should forget about jail cells
and concentrate on wedding bells. Here's why: While
divorce rates have stabilized since 1975 and the rise
in teenage population is slowing, these two trends are
outweighed by the dramatic increase in the number of
babies born out of wedlock. "Our study suggests that
the substantial and sustained increase in births to
unwed mothers is a serious social problem," the report
concludes.
The notion of linking single parents (usually moms)
with juvenile crime seems likely to excite controversy,
especially among liberals. Multnomah County Commissioner
Serena Cruz, for example, calls this approach an "oversimplification."
"It doesn't work for me," Cruz says of the report's
logic. "It's nice to show these correlations, but you
haven't proven anything."
Kissler is quick to say he is not trying to pin the
blame on unwed mothers. For starters, as the report
wryly points out, "procreation requires both males and
females." In addition, Kissler says, there's nothing
magic about a marriage certificate; it's just that single
parents have to work harder to make ends meet. "The
point is not that unwed births are the sole factor,"
he says. "The point is there's more stress on families.
That leads to less parental attention, and that leads
to poor outcomes."
In fact, the report does not claim that children of
single parents are more likely to get into trouble.
But statistically speaking, the rise of single parenthood
is linked to the jump in juvenile arrests, a phenomenon
the authors attempt to explain in terms of "social capital":
resources such as parental attention, neighborliness
and social trust, which sociologists describe as a sort
of intangible wealth possessed in varying degrees by
different families and communities.
While the link between single parenthood and subsequent
juvenile crime is likely to draw the most attention,
the bulk of the report, To Improve the Well-Being
of Oregonians, is an effort to explore the concept
of social capital, particularly in reference to a puzzling
social phenomenon. Over the last two decades, the state's
economic output grew by a muscular 32 percent. During
that same period, however, social conditions stagnated.
Poverty and crime rates, for example, remain stubbornly
high.
Policy-makers, both liberal and conservative, have
long assumed that a buoyant economy would cure most
of society's ills. In the words of John F. Kennedy,
"A rising tide lifts all boats." But a central thesis
of the report is that, in Oregon at least, economic
growth is no panacea; on the contrary, it seems to have
aggravated some social problems, such as stress on families,
as hard-pressed parents struggle to balance their obligations
at work and at home.
To get a better handle on Oregon's social capital,
the authors developed a well-being index composed of
six separate factors: average earnings, poverty, unemployment,
reported crimes, juvenile arrests and teen pregnancies.
These particular measures were chosen for several reasons,
Kissler says. First, the state has reliable annual figures
for each factor going back to 1965. Second, these indicators
reflect key public concerns such as crime, unemployment
and purchasing power. Finally, each is statistically
more or less independent of the other.
Using these factors, the authors calculated Oregon's
well-being index for every year since 1980. Unemployment
and teen pregnancy both showed significant improvement,
lifting the index. Earnings, poverty and reported crime
showed little overall change. Juvenile arrests increased
22 percent, dragging the index back down.
How, then, to improve matters in the future? The report
argues that policy-makers should try to prevent the
loss of social capital in three ways. First, find ways
to ease stress on families, with a particular eye on
reducing the number of children born to single mothers;
second, concentrate on early-childhood intervention
through programs such as Head Start. Finally, expand
programs that target at-risk youth, such as structured
after-school activities.
Kissler denies that the results suggest the future
is set in stone. "It would be easy to infer there's
nothing you can do about this," he says. "But this isn't
all preordained. Social factors and policies do matter."
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Willamette Week | originally
published May 19, 1999
