Father involvement correlates with fewer behavior problems exhibited by their children (Amato & Fernando, 1999). Snyder and Sickmund (1999) reported that African American adolescents make up approximately 15% of the U.S. population. However, African American adolescents represented 41% of juvenile delinquency cases involving detention. More than 50% of the juvenile delinquency cases waived to criminal court involved African Americans. In 1998, 47% of homicide victims between the ages of 15 to 19 were African American males (National Center for Health Statistics, 2000).

Forty-four percent of African American male high school students surveyed in 1999 reported that they had been in a physical fight in the past year and 23% reported carrying a weapon (gun, knife, or club) at least once in the past month (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2000). Delinquent behavior on school property by African American male high school students is taking place at a high rate (National Center for Education Statistics, 2000). This behavior has resulted in adverse affects on relationships between peers and teachers; resulting in disciplinary actions that were disproportionately higher in frequency for African American males; and causing persistent academic underachievement (National Center for Education Statistics). As result of these adverse affects, understanding and deterring delinquent behavior among African American males must be a priority.

Males with committed, involved, responsible, and loving fathers have a greater chance of succeeding academically, developing a healthier self-esteem, displaying empathy and productive social behaviors, and veering away from participation in risky behavior (truancy, criminal activities, and drug use) in contrast to males with absent fathers (Fukuyama, 2001). Research has shown that a boy’s biological father is the one human factor that has the greatest impact on deterring antisocial aggression (Horn & Sylvester, 2002). Johnston (1998) stated that displaced anger resulting from an absent father was a motivating factor for approximately 80% of rapists; father absence is a motivating factor for 70% of juveniles in institutions; and father absence is a motivating factor for 85% of all in incarcerated youth. The data from Phillips and Comanor (1998) were from random surveys of 15,000 children and adolescents. They noted that the household that is void of either parental figure results in one kind of pathology or another in children; however a household that is void of a father tends to have more adverse effects especially on the males.

            One of the most frequently mentioned causes of paternal absence occurs when a father is away due to career demands or divorced from the child’s mother. For those children who are dealing with a temporary loss, such as one due to career relocation, fewer negative effects have been attributed to father absence (Adams, Milner, & Schrepf, 1984; Blankenhorn, 1995; Hetherington, 1972; Horn & Sylvester, 2002; West, 1967). However, in the case of divorce or death, a more serious impact has been found on the child’s emotional development (Horn & Sylvester; Steinberg, 1989).

A report to the National Center for Health Statistics (2000) pointed out that when parents fail to marry or divorce; their children are often the victims. Children residing with their mothers are six times more likely to reside in poorer conditions than children who reside in a two-parent home (Horn & Sylvester, 2002). Children who live in a two-parent home are least likely to suffer intellectually and emotionally and are less likely to exhibit behavioral difficulties. This family structure decreases the likelihood of adolescents participating in alcohol and drug abuse, delinquent behavior, dropping out of school, or promiscuous behavior resulting in teen pregnancy and out of wedlock births (Barber, 1998, 2000; Biller, 1971, 1974, 1982, 1993; Biller & Solomon, 1986; Blankenhorn, 1995; Hetherington, 1972; Kalb et al., 2001; Popenoe, 1996a).

In addition to the issue of father absence in our society, some people are asking, “Does father absence cause social problems such as increased teen pregnancy, or higher unemployment, and poor academic performance?” (Horn & Sylvester, 2002, p. 3). McLanahan and Sandefur (1994) used regression analysis to remove the effects of all of nuisance variables except income. With culture, number of siblings, parental education, and place of residence statistically controlled, they found that girls living in a single-parent home had a 9% increased chance in becoming a statistic for teen pregnancy, they were 6% more likely not to complete high school, and there was an increased chance of about 11% for men to be unemployed. The risk of these social problems declined by approximately one half in each case when parental income was controlled.

The research by Biller (1971, 1974, 1982, 1993) and Biller and Meredith (1974) noted that the severity of the effects of growing up in a fatherless residence has a greater impact on children than adolescents. One possible explanation for this severity could be that children have an inferior intellectual ability to process the reasoning of why they are fatherless and their ability to cope with this reality is not as developed in comparison to an adolescent’s ability to cope. When coping with the realties of an absent father adolescent children have the benefit of age because they are emotionally mature and they have a network of peers that they can turn for support (Steinberg, 1989). A child who experiences father absence before age 5 suffers more devastating psychological and personal difficulties than children who experience father absence at an older age (Beaty, 1995; Biller & Baum, 1971). In a Midwest suburban community, a study of 40 boys aged 11-13 found that the boys who had an absent father had poorer interpersonal relationships and showed a poorer sense of masculinity compared to boys who did not experience father absence (Beaty).

Johnson (1970) found a significant relationship between the father-child relationship and social involvement in both girls and boys (Johnson, 1979). According to Draper and Belsky (1990), children who are raised in father-absent homes tend to see the outside world as threatening and hostile. When children observe a cooperative and stable relationship between their parents they tend to see other social relationships as mutually rewarding. When a child lacks positive interpersonal relationships, the result may be a desire to isolate from others and participate in delinquent activities (Marcus & Gray, 1998).

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