To the Editor:
Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin suggest that a new “morning in America” has dawned [“Crime, Drugs, Welfare—and Other Good News,” December 2007]. They correctly point out that by statistical measures, crime, drug use, and educational failure in America have all fallen since the 1990’s. This is puzzling, they note, because the “good news” has come despite the fact that the American family continues to deteriorate, as indicated by increases in single parenthood, cohabitation, and illegitimacy in the same period, especially among the poor, the working class, Latinos, and African Americans.
So what gives? Does the family influence the social health of the United States or does it not? The best evidence indicates that children and adults continue to benefit from living in intact, married families. Children who are fortunate enough to grow up with a married mother and father are about half as likely to experience poverty, depression, dropping out of high school, or a teenage pregnancy than their peers from cohabiting, single-parent, or step-families. Likewise, adults who are married tend to be healthier, wealthier, happier, and (in the case of men) better behaved than their unmarried peers. So in all likelihood, American society would be even healthier were it not for the continuing deterioration of the family.
Moreover, the rosy picture that Messrs. Wehner and Levin paint would be somewhat darker if they expanded the scope of their examination to two other important outcomes: inequality and incarceration. Since 1990, the poor and the working class have continued to lose ground against the upper-middle class and the wealthy in terms of wages. With more than 1.5 million Americans currently behind bars, our incarceration rate today stands at a historic high. More than one in ten black men lives behind bars—certainly nothing to celebrate. Indeed, one obvious reason that crime rates in America are falling is that we are throwing so many of our young men into prison. Messrs. Wehner and Levin acknowledge this, but do not dwell upon its implications.
There is strong evidence suggesting that family decline has played an important role in driving up inequality and incarceration in America. A recent study by the sociologist Molly Martin found that family fragmentation accounts for 41 percent of the increase in family-income inequality in recent years. Another study led by Sara McLanahan found that young men who grew up in a single-parent or step-family were twice as likely to end up in prison than those who grew up in an intact family.
Morning in America has not yet arrived, and, in my view, will not arrive until the day when most children—especially children hailing from poor, working-class, and minority communities—are privileged enough to grow up with their married mother and father.
W. Bradford Wilcox
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia
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To the Editor:
Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin indulge in a bit of wishful thinking about society’s capacity for “health” without the aid of the traditional family. Their discussion raises the following question: if rates of measurable sociocultural ills (drug use, crime, abortion) have been falling as the traditional family structure has continued to unravel, is it possible that old arguments about the importance of the family are flawed?
But the fact that crime rates are down while illegitimacy is up is irrelevant to the question of whether illegitimacy breeds crime. The only crime data with any bearing on that question concerns how children born out of wedlock fare next to children raised by their own married parents. And in fact, the first group is twice as likely to fall into delinquency than is the second, after controlling for factors like income and education. Similarly, the authors cite data that drug use is down, but ignore the fact that whatever the generalized level of drug abuse in the culture at large, the numbers are much lower for adults and children within married families.
On average, children raised by both of their married parents (as opposed to those raised in single-parent or step-family situations) are more likely to be physically and emotionally healthy, to do better and go further in school, and to earn more money in better jobs; they are less likely to be incarcerated, to be victims of abuse or crime, to have children out of wedlock, to live in poverty, to abuse alcohol or drugs, and to wind up divorced themselves.
Tracey O’Donnell
Barcelona, Spain
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To the Editor:
Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin observe that “improvements are visible in the vast majority of social indicators,” and conclude that our society has been growing healthier in the last decade and a half. But one may question the reliability of their statistical metrics. As a high-school teacher, I have trouble believing that the rise in test scores reflects anything other than more time spent by schools to prepare for tests (and less time on actual learning). Those who have set foot in a classroom know that practice test drills do not take the place of reading books, even if they are better suited for their narrow objective. And no doubt similar statistical games can be played when it comes to police work, social services, and other realms of government.
Michael Mattair
Dallas, Texas
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To the Editor:
Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin note that crime in America has gone down in recent years, and cautiously suggest that though we may not even know it and—with the family still in the doldrums—certainly cannot explain it, our culture may be healthier than it was just a short time ago.
Perhaps they are right. But I wonder if upon closer examination the drop in crime would be seen to be not much more than a lucky accident—that is, not the product of greater social and moral health but of the fact that crime is simply harder to get away with, given modern forensic science and accoutrements like surveillance cameras and cell phones to call police with. If this were the case, the “good news” that Messrs. Wehner and Levin herald is more precisely that social dysfunction exacts a lower price in crime than it once did, just as illegitimate children and disease need no longer be consequences of promiscuous sex.
The reduction in bad social outcomes is certainly to be celebrated. But we should not be lulled into a false sense of our society’s health. We have not reached nirvana, as the authors note, and it should not surprise us if our culture of endless self-indulgence eventually comes back to bite us in some other way.
Paul McFadden
Indianapolis, Indiana
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To the Editor:
Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin report that crime and immorality have been dropping in recent years, and that “we are seeing important progress in critical areas of youth behavior.” The reason? “Obviously,” they write, “no single explanation will suffice.”
I would point to what is perhaps the most significant cultural development in the period they examine (from 1990 to the present): the popularization of personal computers. Testosterone-laden boys no longer have to go out on joyrides to get their kicks; they can play games like Grand Theft Auto. And the camaraderie supplied by a gang can now be supplied on the Internet by sites like Facebook.
Barry Nester
Jerusalem, Israel
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To the Editor:
One of the main factors in the drop in illegitimacy rates, unmentioned by Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin, is probably technology. The DNA test has closed the responsibility gap. Women and state child-welfare agencies armed with such tests can chase down deadbeat dads, and wage garnishment is a useful contraceptive for the irresponsible.
Lazaro Rodriguez
Dania Beach, Florida
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To the Editor:
I enjoyed Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin’s article and agree with many of their observations, but it seems rather circular to note that as people began to be disqualified from welfare rolls there was a “healthy” simultaneous drop—morally speaking—in the number of welfare recipients.
Gordon J. Kerr
Macau, China
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To the Editor:
I was surprised that Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin made no mention of the study by John Donohue and Steven Levitt of the link between legalized abortion and reduced crime. Donohue and Levitt point to the fact that males between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four are most likely to commit crimes. They suggest that the decline in unwanted children following the legalization of abortion in 1973 led to a reduction in crime eighteen years later, starting in 1992 and accelerating sharply in 1995. These would have been the peak crime-committing years of the unborn children. Messrs. Wehner and Levin may disagree with the study, but they should have acknowledged it, as its lessons run somewhat counter to their own conclusions.
Michael Cameron
Christchurch, New Zealand
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Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin write:
W. Bradford Wilcox cites the importance of intact, married families for the well-being of children, and concludes that “in all likelihood, American society would be even healthier were it not for the continuing deterioration of the family.” Tracey O’Donnell adds that children raised by two married parents do far better in life than those lacking such fortunate circumstances. We wholeheartedly agree. Our point was only to register surprise that the last decade-and-a-half has seen improvement in so many social indicators (crime, drug use, welfare caseloads, teen pregnancies, and others) despite the nuclear family’s worsening condition.
We also agree that “morning in America” has not yet arrived, and in fact cautioned against such a conclusion, citing ongoing challenges from “soft nihilism” to a degraded popular culture. Nor do we profess any illusions that such progress that has been made is bankable for the future. Still, the evidence we have amassed shows significant strides on a number of key fronts, and for all the caveats one might raise, there is reason to celebrate.
Michael Mattair writes that “one may question the reliability of [our] statistical metrics”: as a high-school teacher, he believes that improvements in test scores comes less from better instruction than from playing to the numbers. To take his last point first: we relied on statistical indicators that are widely believed to be the most accurate available. We accepted the data and its implications when they were negative, and we should accept them when the trend breaks upward.
Which is not to say that test scores measure everything that is important in education. But they do measure some things, and here, too, the news is often mixed. We know from international comparisons, for example, that our students are badly lagging behind students of other nations in many subjects. At any rate, if we do not use tests to measure knowledge, what other objective measures would Mr. Mattair have us rely on? The self-esteem and self-assessment of students?
Paul McFadden makes an interesting suggestion about the “lucky accident” of decreased crime, but his causal specifics are difficult to prove or disprove. It may be that improvements in technology have made it easier to fight and prevent crime—certainly, as we noted, wiser use of technology had a hand in Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s successes in New York City—but it is hard to imagine that surveillance cameras and cell phones alone explain the extraordinary drop in crime that we have witnessed over the past fifteen years. (There were 2,200 homicides in New York City in 1991, and fewer than 500 last year.) Other factors must be invoked. Barry Nester’s speculation about virtual alternatives to crime is novel but not very persuasive in this regard. He is likely succumbing to the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Lazaro Rodriguez suggests that one of the main factors in the drop in the illegitimacy rate is technology like DNA testing. But the overall illegitimacy rate is at an all-time high, so if DNA testing is effective, it is not reversing an alarming trend. We are not aware of any empirical studies that confirm his overall theory, but we are certainly open to the argument that “wage garnishment is a useful contraceptive for the irresponsible.”
Gordon J. Kerr finds it “circular” to argue that tighter welfare laws enacted in the 1990’s led to a morally “healthy” drop in the welfare caseload. But what actually happened? Many people left the welfare rolls before they could be disqualified; the law created new expectations, and they reacted accordingly. That is healthy. Moreover, many of those who have gone off welfare for whatever reason seem to be doing better and living more responsible, less dependent lives.
Michael Cameron is surprised that we made no mention of the study by John Donohue and Steven Levitt of the link between legalized abortion and reduced crime. Levitt’s thesis went unmentioned because we believe it has been adequately refuted by others. As Ramesh Ponnuru has written:
If Levitt’s theory were correct, one would expect murder rates to have dropped among younger teens before it dropped among older teens. The fourteen-year-olds of 1993 should have been more law-abiding than the fourteen-year-olds of 1983, since legalized abortion would have, supposedly, snuffed out many criminals in the later group. There should have been a much smaller drop in crime among the twenty-five-year-olds, all of whom in both years had been born before Roe. As [Steve] Sailer notes, this is the reverse of what happened. Between 1983 and 1993, murder rates went down among people older than twenty-five and went up among those younger. “[T]he first cohort to survive legalized abortion went on the worst youth murder spree in American history.” [Ted] Joyce notes that Levitt’s theory also implies that crime should have fallen more among blacks than whites—since blacks would have reaped more of the supposed crime-fighting benefits of abortion. Didn’t happen.
Thus, no one can be sure how much of a role, if any, abortion has played in the drop in crime, but it is certainly not preponderant. Even if it was, there are far more decent ways to decrease crime than to destroy children in the womb.
