News

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 21 (LSN) – A study being presented at a meeting of the American Sociological Association today found that boys whose fathers were absent from home were twice as likely to be incarcerated. The Washington Post reported today that researchers Cynthia Harper of the University of Pennsylvania and Sara S. McLanahan of Princeton University noted that “Remarriage of parents doesn’t help; a step-parent in the household doesn’t erase the father-absent problem.” While sons of single mothers fared worst, the study indicated that boys of parents who separate during the child’s adolescence were 1 « times as likely to be jailed. The researchers observed that grandparents living in households without fathers “appears to help improve youths’ chances of avoiding incarceration.”  The longitudinal study undertaken to explain a drastic rise in youth violence followed 6,000 boys from age 14-22 from 1979 to 1993 and controlled for the effects of income, race, parents’ education and urban residence.