Recidivism In America

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“We live in a country that is addicted to incarceration as a tool for social control.” (James Bell.) The diminishing grip on social control, especially in the United States, can be seen in the rate of re-incarceration for teens, otherwise known as recidivism. Recidivism is to literally “fall back” into old tendencies,(e.g. when a youth commits a crime more than once.) Just like most, if not all, issues, we can stop this problem by identifying its roots. At the root, recidivism occurs, because the children of teenage parents are subject to witness bad parental figures and will thus eventually commit a crime. Teenage parents put their children at legal risks by providing a poor parental figure when they drop out of high school, turn to alcohol, …show more content…
Eight out of ten dads will not marry the teen mother, meaning a mass amount of teen mother’s children will make up the 62% of single-household children who live in poverty. Already, the odds are against this child as poverty is a reigning factor in recidivism. Moreover, FYM’s Marriage Resource Center states, “Children raised in intact married families are more likely to attend college,... (and) are less likely to use drugs or alcohol and to commit delinquent behaviors” This connects to my two previous points: the effect of teen parents graduating from school and their drug/alcohol abuse on their children. The quote also directly confirms that children born into single-parent households are more likely to be incarcerated. Arthur’s “Family Life and Youth Offending” cites, “Children growing up in households with (only) young mothers are significantly more likely to be physically neglected, poorly supervised, and emotionally deprived.” These assertions put children on the verge of recidivism. Of course, these statistic do not mean children in single-parent-households are bound to grow up in a detrimental home, but it does greatly raise the chances. In essence, teenage mothers that struggle with marriage put their children at legal
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