Concept of the Month -- July 2008

Peer Pressure as a Causal Factor in Criminal Behavior?

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

2004
2003
2002

December 2004 - A Clarification about the Alleged Causal Connection between the Larger Social Environment and Criminal Behavior

November 2004 - Does the Criminal Experience Remorse?

October 2004 - Thinking in Extremes

September 2004 - Peer Pressure

August 2004--Reading and Poetry Do Not a Reformed Criminal Make

July 2004 -- What the Drug-Using Criminal Really Means by a "High"

June 2004 -- The Criminal's Anger Results from Fear

May 2004 -- Typing Offenders by the Crime for Which They Are Arrested -- Concealing More than Revealed?

April 2004 -- The Criminal Does Learn from Experience

March 2004 -- The Criminal's Shutting off Conscience

February 2004 -- The Criminal's Lack of a Concept of Interdependence

January 2004 -- The Criminal and "Low Self-Esteem"

January 2003 -- Control: For a worthy aim or for its own sake?

March 2003 -- Bipolar Disease or the Ups and Downs of the Antisocial Person's Unrealistic Expectations?

April 2003 -- "Out of Character Crime" is Not Out of Character

May 2003 -- The Armed Bank Robber and the Corporate Crook are One and the Same

June 2003 -- Drug Addiction: A Caution about the Disease Concept

July 2003 -- Dependence versus Exploitation

August 2003 -- Drugs as Escape or as Facilitators?

September 2003 -- Criminality and Suggestibility

October 2003 -- The Futility of Focusing on Causes of Criminal Behavior When Evaluating and Counseling Adult or Juvenile Offenders

November 2003 -- The Criminal Knows Right From Wrong

December 2003 -- Can A Criminal Learn From Experience?

May 2002 -- Working to Eliminate Anger

June 2002 -- Self Esteem: What is it?

July 2002 -- Can An Agent of Change be Both a Counselor and a "Cop"?

August 2002 -- Chronic Drug Abuse -- For "Escape" or  Excitement?

September 2002 -- "Respect" in the Street Sense versus Respect in the Responsible World

October 2002 -- Power and Control -- Legitimate or Not?

November 2002 -- "Addiction" -- the disease concept in treating criminals

December 2002 -- Does the Criminal Have a Conscience?


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