Peers and Delinquency

History

As early as 1931, two famous sociologists at the University of Chicago, Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay, discovered that more than 80 percent of juveniles appearing before the Chicago Juvenile Court had accomplices. Similar findings drawn from police data were routinely reported by scholars from the 1920s through the 1960s. As self-report methods gained acceptance in the 1960s and 1970s, evidence for the group nature of delinquency swelled. Martin Gold, for example, reported that 75 percent of the 2,490 chargeable delinquent offenses reported by his sample of Flint youths were committed in the company of others, and less than 20 percent of respondents in Lyle Shannon's survey of Racine youths said that they had acted alone. Today, the group nature of delinquency is widely accepted as fact by criminologists, and it appears to hold even in countries outside the United States.

As the group nature of delinquency became increasingly apparent during the 20th century, so too did the features of these groups. Nearly all studies show the typical size of delinquent groups to be small—usually two to four members. It appears that group size diminishes with age; groups of four or more are common in late childhood and early adolescence but gradually give way to triads and dyads in middle and late adolescence. Apart from their size, it is also well established that delinquent groups are predominantly unisexual (although males are more common in female groups than vice versa), and they appear to be relatively age homogeneous as well. It is important to bear in mind, however, that small differences in age can hold great significance to adolescents—older adolescents have significantly more privileges than younger ones—and the “instigator” in delinquent groups is often older (and almost never younger) than other group members.

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