Junior Theme Update

For the last couple weeks of American Studies class, we have been researching topics of interest in a seemingly never ending attempt to create a why question. Initially I had no idea which theme my paper would be; sports, political, media, etc. I am fascinated by physcology, and came across an interesting article online about the physcology of criminals. This topic became one of interest to me, and I continued to search in the library for books that pertained to this topic. Upon further research, I read an article that presented a narrower question that I saw potential in for a "Why" question. It brought to my attention the controversy of the insanity claim. The defense used by criminals in hopes of lessening their sentence, or not facing a death penalty. However, this defense is used in less than 1% of criminal's trials, and there is no trend in recent years to further investigate, i.e., a sharp increase or decrease in the usage of this defense. Refocusing on criminal physcology I looked for a new topic within this field, with a little more relevance in the present day. I found an interesting article that over the last 30 years there has been a sharp increase in children being raised by singles parents, and that children raised by single parents make up over 70% of inmates in state junvenile detention centers serving long-term sentences. Likewise, the studies showed additional statistics that were very striking: children in single-parent families are 20 times as likely to end up in prison and 32 times as likely to run away from home. The numbers vary from source to source, but the general consensus is that we have a sharp rise in crime that is held responsible by children in single-parent families. Take away 70% of crime from America today, and are society would be much safer then it is today. This topic yields a few question I can't help but wonder; why the sharp rise in single parent families, and more importantly, why the increase in crime for these juveniles in single-parent families?