nd in 59 percent of these cases, there is no father figure in the home. The absence of a father is particularly destructive for boys; only 2 percent of SHOs are female. Furthermore, 68 percent of these offenders have committed crimes of violence, 15 percent have a history of committing sex crimes, and 51 percent have a reported missing or runaway record. If a broken family characterized by physical or sexual abuse is an early indicator of criminal behaviour, then virtually all of these serious habitual offenders fit this category. These findings are consistent with the Heritage Foundation's widely reported analysis of the true root causes of violent crime, particularly the crimogenic conditions associated with broken or dysfunctional SHOs do not consider the crimes they have committed to be all thatfamilies. Forty-five percent are gang members, 64 percent associate with otherbad. serious habitual offenders, and 75 percent abuse drugs. Recent studies show that illegal drug use among the young is on the rise and a significant majority of all present day SHOs -"Super Predators"- use or sell illegal drugs and often become addicted themselves. Illegal drug use and alcohol abuse tends to be regular features of their criminal conduct. Drugs, in particular, are part of the criminal scene of these juvenile offenders, and the use and sale of drugs contributes significantly to a SHO's other criminal activity. The need to purchase illegal drugs, combined with the warped hedonism of the addict, shapes and drives much of the criminal activity of this class of criminals. Juvenile crime and violence is on the rise. Many criminologists are calling it an epidemic, a ticking time bomb, the calm before the storm, and a long descent into night, you choose the clich. The reasons for this rise in teen crime seems to have its roots not so much in poverty as it does to poverty of values. Experts like John DiIulio and James Q. Wilson believe ...
