Evidence on crime suggests that growing up without them is much worse.
Criminal activity has very few supporters.
All counted, lying, cheating, and stealing is a negative sum game for which the full opportunity cost in the United States may be near one fifth of all goods and services produced in any given year. Both dates come well before Tax Freedom Day, but with crime, all you re getting back is minus one wallet plus an expected beating, not a highway or a park bench. Of the usual suspects included in earlier studies, such as unemployment rates, number of police officers, length of prison terms, and conviction probabilities, none seem to have as much impact on their own as variables relating directly to family structure. Provocative new research points to single-parent families as a source of crime. In a recent study, the Heritage Foundation s Robert Rector finds evidence that family history plays a generous part in the odds you are likely to face when making career choices.