A group of seven young Philadelphia teens were caught on surveillance camera beating a 73-year-old man named James Lambert Jr. to death with a traffic cone in June. The footage shows the teens giggling and recording the slow, brutal assault as if it were casual entertainment. “I just don’t know what’s going on in our city,” Lambert’s niece told Fox 29 Philadelphia. “Where were the parents?”
Pennsylvania, like many states nationwide, is experiencing a youth-crime crisis. Data from the state’s Juvenile Court Judges’ Commission suggest that a major factor in crime among youth is family structure. More than 80 percent of every juvenile court disposition in 2021 involved a young person who lives in a broken home, without two married parents. Nearly 48 percent live with a single mother, while a mere 15.5 percent live with both parents. Similar trends hold up year after year after year.
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Michael Torres is the deputy editor at RealClearPennsylvania. Adapted from City Journal.
This piece originally appeared in RealClearPennsylvania