You are lucky to be remote from them, and you have my sympathy. I have a friend here who has a branch of the family (including several of her grandchildren) that essentially followed a downward path and are almost all in jail at the moment.
It’s kind of a cultural thing. Your reference to Jerry Springer was right on target, because these people’s values are formed by TV and once they saw creeps becoming the new celebrities, that’s where they wanted to go.
We live about 20 miles away. When he graduated high school he decided to go live with his mom and after hanging out for a few months Thank GOD he decided to move back in and go to college . I never asked why but I had a feeling.