Keeping families together and kids out of the state's courtrooms was the focus of a two-day workshop underway in Atlanta earlier today. Governor Sonny Perdue addressed the group at the start of the conference. Quoting statistics from a University of Chicago study, Perdue says the breakdown of the traditional family is tied to rising juvenile delinquency rates.
"You look at so many of the problems in our society, the ones we see in schools, in courtrooms, and you can trace those problems to the family or rather more specifically to the breakdown of the American family. On a societal level, you get truancy, high school drops outs, substance abuse and crime."Georgia's top judge -- Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears -- created the Summit on Children, Marriage and Family, bringing together social workers, family court judges and lawyers from around the nation.
"All I'm trying to do and all this summit is trying to do is involve government at the outset on a minimal basis to enhance this not wholly private institution so that doesn't government doesn't have to end up being the third parent in so many of our families."Sears hopes the group will help shape public policy -- a sentiment echoed by Governor Perdue. One major issue is absentee fathers.
"Our fathers are becoming less engaged from their families, either through divorce or as a result of families that never really take hold and the fathers drift apart. But children need both a mother and father with them, and they need both of those parents with them, preferably in their homes, that is not always possible, and I know that but we need to do a better job."The final day of the conference will examine what experts call a crisis in the African American community ... the sharply declining rate of traditional marriages.
