A top law enforcement official is admitting that gang-related crime and violence are rooted in the breakdown of the family. In a Thursday interview on “The Larry Elder Show,” Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Chief Jim McDonnell was asked if gang violence is “a product of the breakdown of the nuclear family?”

“It certainly is,” McDonnell answered. “That’s probably foundational,” he said, noting that other factors — including rap music and other forms of media “glamorizing a lifestyle that’s dysfunctional and going to get people hurt” contribute. However, he admitted that one of the most crucial factors in the prevalence of gang-related crime and violence is “certainly the family’s role in raising a young person in the best way possible.”

Los Angeles and other metropolitan hubs have long been homes to gang-related crime and violence, with a significant spike in the 1980s and 1990s, in concert with the dissolution of families and a rise in fatherlessness. The number of children in the U.S. growing up in single-parent households nearly tripled from 9% in 1960 to at least 25% by the end of 2023. Roughly half of black children, nearly one third (29%) of Hispanic children, and one fifth (20%) of white children currently live in single-parent households. In 85% of cases, children live with their mothers, while their fathers are absent. The trend aligns with an increase in out-of-wedlock births, rising from less than 18% in 1980 to over 40% by the late 2000s.

The absence of fathers in particular corresponds to an increased likelihood of youth involvement in crime, especially gang-related crime. Studies suggest that anywhere from 70% to 90% of gang members come from fatherless homes, with one analysis reporting that two-thirds (66%) of incarcerated juvenile delinquents grew up without a father, while another study suggested that as many as 72% of adolescent murderers came from fatherless homes.

In conversation with The Washington Stand, “The Larry Elder Show” host Larry Elder, a former attorney and Republican candidate for both governor of California and U.S. president, asserted, “Many of our problems in our society stem from the breakdown in intact families.” Noting the high number of children born into fatherless homes, significantly higher than it was in the 1960s, he continued, “In my opinion, since then, what we’ve done is incentivized women to marry the government and incentivized men to abandon their financial and moral responsibility,” largely through the proliferation of reliance on government welfare.

“It is a problem that, unfortunately, neither Republicans or Democrats have spent very much time talking about,” Elder lamented, noting that his political campaigns have addressed the issue as a crucial one to the well-being of the nation. Fatherlessness “is clearly what is causing people to join gangs,” he said. “They don’t have father figures. Society has broken down. They need protection. There was a time in our country when, you had a problem, your father called the father of the home of the kid you had the problem with, and you work it out. That just doesn’t happen now anymore, particularly in the inner city.”

While fatherlessness is a more prevalent issue among black children, it also impacts other demographics. Elder recalled a trip to Iowa when he asked a city police chief if his jurisdiction had gang-related crime. When the chief affirmed that his predominantly-white jurisdiction did have gang issues, Elder asked, “‘What’s the commonality?’ He said, ‘No father figure: not a father in the house, not a pastor, a football coach, not somebody that can be the father figure for children without dads.’ So if it’s happening there, it certainly is happening in urban America.”

“The question is, ‘How do you reverse this?’” Elder posited. “Every single kid in America who does not have a father figure should have somebody on his or her cell phone that you could call when you have an issue that you want to discuss,” he answered, likening the system to sponsors in the Alcoholics Anonymous program. “So when you’re feeling weak, you’re feeling vulnerable, you’re feeling tempted, you pick up the phone or you somehow meet with your sponsor to talk you out of what you were going to do. I think every kid should have something like that, and I think all of us should step up and get involved.”

Elder also observed that over-reliance on laxly-administered welfare programs “incentivizes” the breakdown of families. “When you are paying people essentially to be irresponsible, you’re going to get more irresponsibility. I know it sounds cruel, but at some point we have to stop doing this, and the need for the needy should be met by nonprofits, by individuals, by churches, by houses of worship,” he suggested. “There was a poll in the L.A. Times in the 1980s,” he recalled, “asking people on welfare, ‘Do you feel that welfare is a stepping stone towards independence? Or do you feel it is a crutch that causes dependency?’ More of them said it was a crutch than said it was a stepping stone.” Elder added, “And these were people on welfare. So they were telling you this is what it’s doing to us, and nobody’s listening.”

In comments to TWS, David Closson, director of the Center for Biblical Worldview at Family Research Council, agreed that the dissolution of the family is a “foundational” issue plaguing modern society. “I’d say that Chief McDonnell’s observation reflects a truth that Scripture has long affirmed: the family is a foundational institution established by God for the ordering of society and the formation of moral character,” he observed. “From passages like Deuteronomy 6 and Ephesians 6, we see that parents are called to diligently instruct their children in truth, discipline, and wisdom,” Closson continued. “When that structure is weakened or absent, the consequences are not merely private but social.”

“A biblical worldview recognizes that the breakdown of the family often leaves a vacuum of authority, identity, and belonging, which can make young people more vulnerable to destructive influences, including gangs that offer a counterfeit sense of community and purpose,” Closson pointed out. “At the same time, this is not merely a sociological insight but a reflection of deeper moral and cultural realities. When a society drifts from God’s design for the family, the effects are felt not only in homes but in neighborhoods and institutions,” he observed.

“A theologically and politically conservative perspective recognizes that public policy and cultural norms should seek to strengthen, not weaken, the family,” he continued. “This includes affirming the importance of marriage, encouraging the presence and responsibility of both mothers and fathers, and recognizing the family as the primary place where children learn discipline, responsibility, and respect for authority.”