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The Interaction Between the Development of Deviant Peer Influence and Resistance to Peer Influence: Relevance for Predicting Offending in Early Adulthood

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Abstract

Objectives

Elucidate susceptibility to peer influence developmental trajectories across adolescence and early adulthood among a sample of juvenile offenders. Examine the relevance of susceptibility to peer influence and the interaction between deviant peer association and susceptibility to peer influence for predicting offending frequency in early adulthood.

Methods

The Pathways to Desistance data was used in analyses. Analyses utilized group-based trajectory modeling to elucidate general patterns of development of susceptibility to peer influence. The second phase of analyses utilized a series of negative binomial regression to estimate the effects of susceptibility group assignment, deviant peer association group assignment, and the interaction between these constructs for predicting offending frequency at age 23.

Results

A two-group model was found to best fit the susceptibility to peer influence data. Negative binomial regression results indicate that the interactions between assignment to the High and Moderate deviant peer association groups and high susceptibility group significantly predicted elevated offending at age 23.

Conclusions

Juvenile offenders with the highest number of deviant peers in early adulthood are at risk for higher offending frequency, but only when they are highly susceptible to peer influence. The implications of results for criminal justice officials are discussed.

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Notes

  1. “Stacking” of the data entails the transformation of data so that a variable is created that is contingent upon a response to another variable. In the Pathways to Desistance study, participants entered at different ages. So, there is no specific observation period in which all participants are 23 years of age. Some participants reported being 23 at observation point 6, while others reported being 23 at observation point 7, etc. This stacking entailed creating a variable which consisted only of reports of offending frequency when a participant was 23 years old, regardless of which observation period this occurred in. The stacked offending variable then just describes offending frequency at age 23.

  2. The frequency of the following 24 crime types were added together to make a cumulative offending frequency score in the Pathways to Desistance study: destroy property, set fire, break-in to steal, shoplift, receive stolen property, use credit card illegally, stole car, sold marijuana, sold other drug, carjack, drive drunk, been paid by someone for sex, forced sex, killed someone, shot someone, shot at someone, robbery with weapon, robbery no weapon, beaten someone, in fight, fight part of gang, carried gun, entered car to steal, gone joyriding.

  3. Proportions of the sample assigned to these groups: Low = 32.1%; Moderate = 45%; High = 22.9%.

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  1. Department of Sociology and Criminology & Law and Society, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Thomas W. Wojciechowski

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Correspondence to Thomas W. Wojciechowski.

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Wojciechowski, T.W. The Interaction Between the Development of Deviant Peer Influence and Resistance to Peer Influence: Relevance for Predicting Offending in Early Adulthood. J Dev Life Course Criminology 4, 322–342 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40865-018-0086-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40865-018-0086-9

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