A number of studies have suggested that the greatest predictor of violent crime among adult males is joblessness. The greatest predictor of crime among youth is the absence of the father from the home. As criminologist Robert J. Sampson concluded in a 1987 study that linked joblessness among men with family disruption and violent crime, "These effects are independent of income, region, race and age composition, density, city size, and welfare benefits."
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In recent years, multiple federal initiatives have been developed to address these issues, virtually all of them focused primarily on urban minority populations. While a number of promising program models have been developed in response to these initiatives, many have fallen victim to funding cutbacks associated with the ever-increasing federal deficit. Many of the most innovative programs have leveraged the resources of urban communities of faith, which are now being forced to scramble for smaller outlays of public funds.
What has not been heard to an appreciable degree is the voice of the suburban church. Partnerships between urban and suburban churches, to be sure, have become increasingly common over the past two decades. Yet the predominant dynamic in these relationships has generally been one in which the suburban church (the big brother) supplies money and other resources to the urban church (the little brother) to subsidize the latter's ministry.
What has gone unnoticed has been the flight of the poor into the suburbs. According to a 2010 study of the Brookings Institute, the majority of all racial and ethnic groups in large metropolitan areas now live outside the city limits, even as young professionals, attracted by knowledge-based jobs and shorter commutes, have returned to the cities. Among the effects of this population shift, according to a report in the Huffington Post, is that "The suburbs now have the largest poor population in the country." Not coincidentally, this population shift parallels the decade-long expansion of youth gangs into suburban and even exurban areas around the country.
The net effect is that the challenges faced by urban pastors and their congregations for generations are now being placed at the feet of their suburban counterparts, and without the social service infrastructure supports common in city governments. Among other things, this suggests a role reversal in the big brother-little brother congregational dynamic, with urban congregations providing technical assistance to their more well-heeled but less experienced brethren in the 'burbs.
Source: Patheos.com
Rev. Samuel K. Atchison has served as a welfare policy analyst, social services administrator, social policy consultant, and prison chaplain. He is the president of the Trenton Ecumenical Area Ministry (TEAM), which serves as a coordinating agency for the community outreach efforts of churches in Mercer County, New Jersey. He is also a community partnership manager with the Amachi Mentoring Coalition Project (AMCP), a program of the Philadelphia Leadership Foundation that provides mentoring to children impacted by incarceration.
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