A prison can be thought of mostly as a men's center.  More precisely, a center for fatherless men. John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo, the D.C. area sniper suspects- both raised without their biological dads-are among the latest additions.

Children raised without their biological dad are more likely to join the military at an early age, as did John Allen Muhammad. They are more likely to have temper tantrums; Muhammad was known for temper tantrums. And they are more likely to commit homicide and suicide. Both Johns have, in essence, it appears, done both.

We associate crime with poverty, but a boy or girl raised without a biological dad is more likely to become a criminal than a child growing up in poverty.  "Biological" is key. During 13  years of research for Father and Child Reunion, I discovered, although I am a step dad and not a biological dad, that step dads do not seem to fill the void experienced by so many children who have little or no contact with their biological dad. John Malvo had a quasi-step dad figure in John Muhammad-but no contact with his biological dad.

Children raised without their biological fathers are more vulnerable to being recruited by a strong substitute dad-be it a gang, cult, religion or a final solution. When Nazis sought young recruits they sought boys raised without dads-especially those raised by dominant and protective moms. Both John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo were vulnerable to being recruited by the strong cause of a religion, and, in Malvo's case, the strong leadership of Muhammad.

When these vulnerabilities are magnified by child custody battles and divorce wars, and especially the vulnerability of masculinity-after-divorce, have gasoline near a match. The strength of masculinity-after-divorce is a façade. After divorce men are ten times as likely as women to commit suicide. Men's weakness is their façade of strength; women's strength is their façade of weakness.

Women's biggest fear after divorce is economic deprivation; men's biggest fear is emotional deprivation. The law attempts to help women reduce their economic fear, but does not help dad reduce his emotional fear. Instead, it exacerbates it: the legal bias toward children being with their mom increases a dad's feelings of emotional desertion and uselessness. Muhammad's biological son, Lindbergh Williams, now 20, identified the two experiences he felt were so stressful to Muhammad that it caused him to "just snap": the military  and Muhammad's loss of his children.

A man without someone to love after divorce has the four ingredients most likely to make him prone to suicide: the feelings that no one loves him; that no one needs him; that there's no hope of that changing, and the inability to express those feelings. A man prepared to commit suicide is a man with nothing to lose by committing homicide.  If he is angry with someone he can find, he has someone to kill. If he cannot find his particular source of anger, he gets less particular.

John Allen Muhammad was just such a man. According to John Mills, the Tacoma attorney who represented Muhammad in his custody battle with his ex-wife Mildred, Muhammad had heard Mildred had fled from Tacoma to Maryland with the children. Muhammad was trying to track her down to serve her court papers so he could also be with his children. He had been trying to find them for more than a year.  Doubtless the frustration and anger finally exploded.

Obviously the solution is not to let men like this have their children-it is to prevent our sons from becoming men like this. After divorce, the process starts with doing everything legally possible to have children raised by both their dads and their moms.

Even after divorce, children who are most emotionally stable are ones with about equal contact with both parents. Children do best when they are exposed to both of their parents about equally, even when one of the parents is considerably imperfect (the exceptions are child endangerment and consistent bad-mouthing of the absent parent).

Why? Growing up is about discovering oneself, and the child's self is both of its parents. Children who have only one parent after divorce seem to feel rudderless-as if they are in search of the other half of themselves.  They act out by being anti-social, bullying and being bullied, being aggressive, overly sensitive to criticism, doing worse in school in every academic subject, being sick more often-in brief, doing worse on all twenty-five of the major areas of measurement: academic, social, psychological and physical health.

The immediate solution for Muhammad and Malvo, if convicted, is prison or death. One way to prevent such snipers of the future is for society to encourage the father involvement  that creates more emotionally stable children. These children will in turn become more emotionally stable parents who can put their energy into raising children, rather than divert energy and, in the case of men, catalyze anger by fighting just to be a father.