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    At-Risk Youth

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    The Fatherless

    Fatherlessness is an epidemic. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 24 million children in America – that’s one in three – live in a home without their biological father. Consequently, there is a “fatherless factor” in nearly all of the social issues facing America today.

    • Over 1.7 million babies are born out of the wedlock each year in America.
    • 63% of black children, 28% of white children, and 35 percent of Hispanic children are living in homes absent of their biological father.
    • Children in father-absent homes are five times more likely to be poor.
    • 85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes. (Center for Disease Control)
    • The absence of a biological father increases by 900 percent a daughter’s vulnerability to rape and sexual abuse.
    • Being raised by a single mother raises the risk of teen pregnancy.
    • 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes. (US Dept. Of Health/Census)
    • 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes.
    • 80% of rapists come from fatherless homes. (Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26)
    • 85% of all youths in prison come from fatherless homes.
    • 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes.  (National Principals Associations: Report on the State of High Schools)
    • 46.2% of babies born in Hamilton County in 2007 were to unmarried parents. (Tennessee Department of Health)

    starfish64The Incarcerated

    More than 2.5 million juveniles are arrested every year in America and 70% of juveniles convicted of crimes have gone on to commit crimes again. With Our U.S. prison population increasing 15 times faster than the general population, the urgency for youth intervention has never been greater!

    One study indicated that 94% of incarcerated youth have never had one single positive adult male role model that was consistently present in their life! Another study indicated that 84% of the boys who become serious juvenile offenders have parents with criminal records. It is quite clear that at-risk young people are in desperate need of healthy relationships with adults.

    starfish64Prisoners’ Children

    The United States has the largest prison population in the Western world. In 2006, over 2.2 million men and women were in American federal, state, and local prisons and jails. Since 1970, the rate of imprisonment in the US has risen over 400 per cent, and the average length of prison sentences has grown substantially.

    By the best estimates, as of August 2013, about 2.7 million children under the age of 18 have a parent in prison or jail. According to sociologists Bruce Western and Becky Petit, that means one in 28 kids in the United States (as of 2010) has a mother or father, or both, in lockup—a dramatic change from the one in 125 rate a quarter of a century ago. Over 14,000 children of the imprisoned annually enter foster care, while an undetermined number enter juvenile detention and adult prisons.

    Turning the Tide of Juvenile Delinquency One Child at a Time!

    Breakaway is missionally focused in serving the fatherless generation, incarcerated youth, children of prisoners, and other at-risk youth and disadvantaged children.