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I was recently interviewed by a radio program host and asked about the role of peer pressure as a contributor to criminal behavior. There is no doubt that peer pressure exists practically from womb to tomb == from preschool play groups on into adult life. The issue is whom does a person CHOOSE as peers.
Every high school has its groups -- grinds, nerds, jocks, preps, sweats, and so on. People choose the company they keep. They gravitate to those with whom they share interests. Even in the extreme case where a person grows up in a neighborhood largely ruled by gangs, not all younsters belong to gangs. The pressures undeniably are strong. But the residents of those areas decide what they will and will not do.
I remember interviewing a young woman in the county jail who told me that her mother wondered why, as a young girl, she did not want to play with her contemporaries. She told me, "They were a drag -- hopscotch, jump rope, dolls, and board games. I wanted something more." The "something more" consisted of activities that were to her far more exciting. She gravitated to older kids and did things on a dare, eventually shoplifting, vandalizing property, and engaging in other unlawful acts. She had to prove that she could be trusted, that she would go along with these kids and not "snitch" or inform.
When a kid claims, "All my friends are doing it, that is probably true." Because these are the kids he chooses to be with.
Let us recognize that we all are subject to pressures from the environment. But the focus should shift from those pressures as causative (a deterministic view) to the choices we make as to how to deal with those pressures!
Past Concepts of the Month
2008
May/June: "Errors in Thinking" Apply to the Alcoholic or Problem Drinker
April: Early Identification of Antisocial Behavior - Part I
March: Does the Criminal "Burn Out" with Age?
February: More on the Role of the Social Environment
January: Does Prison Make a Person a "Worse Criminal"?
2007
November/December: The Male Criminal's Choice of Women
October: An Alternative View of "Compulsive" Gambling
September: The Primacy of Thinking
August: Dick Diver from F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Tender Is the Night": A comment on a 1920's narcissist and today's celebrity narcissists
July: Another "Addiction"?
June: Musings about City Safety - USA and Spain
May: Virginia Tech: Can a Future School Shooter be Identified?
April: White Collar Crime and Street Crime: Similar Thought Processes
March: More on "Addiction" as a "Disease"
February: The Criminal and Suicidal Thinking
January: "I think, therefore I feel": The Primacy of Thinking
2006
December: The Overuse and Misuse of the Word "Addiction"
November: The Social Environment Does Not "Cause" Crime
October: "Anna Karenina" -- A Study in Character
September: The Concept of "Nonarrestable" Criminality
August: A Note on "Copycat" Violent Crimes
July: How "Errors in Thinking" Apply to Pedophiles
June: Suggestibility and the Juvenile Offender
May: Part I: Anger and the Criminal
April: An Expanded Concept of "Criminality"
March: Neurotic Features in the Individual with an Antisocial Personality Disorder
February: Sporadic Remorse Elevates the Criminal's View of Himself as a Good Person
December05/January: Can A Criminal Learn to be Empathic? -- Parts I and II
2005
November: "Compulsive" Gambling: Mental Disorder or Irresponsibile Choices?
September/October: Opportunistic Looting as in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
August: "Kleptomania": A Reality or a Psychiatric Invention?
July: "Love" -- The Criminal's Experience is Extremely Limited
June: The Problem with "Anger Management"
May: Religion in the Criminal's Good Opinion of Himself/Herself
April: From Maudlin Sentiment to Savage Brutality
March: The Use of the Offender's Language is Counterproductive in Interviewing and Counseling
February: The Concept of "Confrontation" in Helping Offenders Change
January: "I think, therefore it is so": A Costly Error of Thinking