Michael Smerconish | WHAT IF IT'S MARRIAGE, NOT GUNS?

November 23, 2007

ONE MONTH before the recent general election, I moderated what turned out to be more of a panel discussion than a mayoral debate.

I was anxious to question Michael Nutter about data I've studied and written about that suggests a link between crime and the dissolution of marriage.

I offered the data. Nutter was dismissive. Which is unfortunate, because the violence plaguing the city will soon occur on his watch. And if he doesn't appreciate what's driving the problem, he surely will fail to find a solution. Frankly, I'm not sure any mayor can fashion one.

As I've said before, Philadelphia, like much of the nation, has a family problem more than a firearm problem. But that issue is more often ignored than discussed. Maybe, in light of recent news, that will change.

Donyea Phillips is 16, a presumed drug dealer and the latest Philadelphian to shoot a police officer. I found it significant that in the aftermath of the shooting, we learned that Phillips had bounced between his parents' separate houses.

Consider, too, the case of John Lewis, taken into custody in Miami for the murder of Police Officer Chuck Cassidy. Lewis had lived with his mother, a city corrections officer. His grandmother, nicknamed "Big Momma," was reported to play a significant role in his upbringing, as she did for 11 children, 32 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

I don't want to disparage Big Momma. I suspect she is a well-intentioned, hard-working woman doing as well as any one person can. But all too often, the role of raising many kids is left to a single relative. And Big Momma can't do it alone.

These are signs of the time. Even Congress seems to understand. Consider the opening salvos of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (signed into law by President Clinton on Aug. 22, 1996, and since reauthorized):

(1) Marriage is the foundation of a successful society.

(2) Marriage is an essential institution of a successful society which promotes the interests of children.

(3) Promotion of responsible fatherhood and motherhood is integral to successful child rearing and the well-being of children.

It's telling, then, that the number of married couples with children has declined to just one in every four households - the lowest ever recorded, according to 2006 Census data. Marriage, the data shows, is becoming an institution reserved for the affluent and well-educated.

Meanwhile, the number of babies born out of wedlock is increasing. About a third of first births among white women are outside marriage, compared to three-quarters among black women. That's according to a recent review of research on cohabitation coauthored by University of Michigan professor Pamela Smock and Wendy D. Manning of Bowling Green State University.

Our country's urban centers are peppered with single-parent homes populated by unguided young men. But what does this have to do with crime?

Robert J. Sampson, chairman of the department of sociology at Harvard, believes that kids from single-parent urban homes are the ones most susceptible to the violence tearing our city apart.

In a study of Chicago neighborhoods he co-authored in the February 2005 American Journal of Public Health, he reported that the odds of perpetrating violence were 85 percent higher for black youths than those for white youths - and the marital status of a child's parents was a key determinant of those odds.

The presence of married parents was linked to a lower probability of violence among the young, and it significantly lessened the disparity in violence between black and white youths.

Meanwhile, a 2006 study coauthored by Sampson affirms the benefits of marriage for married men. The findings included a 35 percent reduction in the "probability of crime" among 500 at-risk men - once they married.

Need more evidence? H.R. 3734 is premised on information culled from sources like Kids Having Kids, a collection of findings regarding the effect of teen-childbearing edited by Rebecca Maynard, a professor of education and social policy at Penn.

Typical of Congress' report:

As the percentage of teens and single-parent households increases in a neighborhood, so does the rate of violent crime.

To sum it up: There's a correlation between the presence of a coherent family unit, marriage, and a reduction of violence. This while the number of married couples with children is at a low ebb, particularly in cities.

How unfortunate that this information only rarely gets a public airing. More typical is the response of Mayor Street and Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson after Donyea Phillips shot two officers last week: We need tougher gun laws.

At their best, tougher laws serve only to bandage a city's gunshot wound. At their worst, they're political pandering in the face of a more complex problem. *

Listen to Michael Smerconish weekdays 5:30-9 a.m. on the Big Talker, 1210/AM. Read him Sundays in the Inquirer. Contact him via the Web at www.mastalk.com.