Parents or Prisons

688 Words3 Pages
Parents or Prisons, article in Policy Review Read the article and in a 2-3 page paper state whether or not you agree with Morse’s assertion of the relationship between single parent households and delinquency. Your argument should be supported with examples and at least one other research article supporting your view. Jennifer Morse (2003) in the Parents or Prisons article in Policy Review highlights many reasons to say that prisons are like substitutes parents. In my opinion each person is responsible for its own destiny. But I must say that parents are a huge and irreplaceable difference in the lives of children in terms of education, abuse, physical and mental health, drug use, pregnancy and nearly every other social indicator. Despite this, I do not think that prisons are a type of replacement for parents. Persons who do not learn to develop at home can hardly develop in jail. For single parents maybe the raising of the kids is not perhaps as with both parents, but education has the same purpose. Prisons can never give the same education or love from a single parent home. Morse gives examples of cases of single parents, but this does not mean it is a problem. I have known professionals who have been raised by only one parent and have not been affected. I believe that the important thing to avoid kids to fall in crime is communication. When parents fail to communicate with their children they do not know where the children are, what their activities, or who their friends are more likely to be absent from school and having delinquent friends that make them behave the same way. There are many studies as Father Facts (2002), Journal of Marriage and the Family (1996), Family Status of Delinquents in Juvenile Correctional Facilities in Wisconsin (1994) and Survey of Youth
Open Document