ABSTRACT
Family-related variables seem promising as an explanation for the crime trends, because family structure, like crime, changed enormously in America during the postwar years. Connections between families and crime also seem promising for explaining postwar differences between African Americans and whites. This chapter argues that the declining legitimacy of traditional family institutions in postwar America contributed to the crime wave of the 1960s and 1970s. It also argues that, compared to white families, the legitimacy of black family institutions started lower and declined more rapidly during the postwar years. The chapter considers two major challenges to the legitimacy of the traditional American family during the postwar period. The first challenge was ideological and aimed directly at the traditional family as a male-dominated institution. The second major challenge, related in complex ways to the first, was largely economic. Economic changes had profound effects on the total amount of time most individuals spent in families in the postwar United States.
