Study Finds Delinquent Behavior Among Boys Is "Contagious"

According to a new study, if everyone else was committing a crime, you would too, at least if you are a boy. The 20-year study showed what every grandmother could tell you; children from poor families, with inadequate supervision and bad friends were more likely to end up in juvenile court. What was more surprising is that exposure to the juvenile justice system seemed to increase the chance that the boy would engage in criminal activity as a young adult. "For boys who had been through the juvenile justice system, compared to boys with similar histories without judicial involvement, the odds of adult judicial interventions increased almost seven-fold," says study co-author Richard E. Tremblay.

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Re:Ah yes, another breakthrough from MISPWOSO

[princessproton]

Not only obvious, but previously described by criminologists. Sutherland's Differential Association Theory was published in the '70s, and even those concepts were grounded in Social Learning Theory, which was developed in the 1800s.

The basic tenets of Differential Association Theory are that criminal (or delinquent) behavior is learned, usually through contact/behavior modeling of an intimate social group (peers). Further criminological theories posit that the labeling of these group behaviors as deviant can cause the group to develop their own subculture with values apart from traditional society. Therefore, the labeling involved in the "help given by the juvenile justice system" actually promotes continued deviant behavior.