Issue 149: july 2011

co vert  crim i nal  acts  like  rob ber ies  and

shoot ings, com mit ted when he was older,

in creased his sta tus in his street gang and

were fol lowed by “good time” cel e bra -

tions where he was often rec og nized for

his ac com plish ments by the gang’s

leadership.

Rites of Pas sage

Juan’s  self-re flec tion  of fers  in sight  into

how youth can use sig nif i cant events in

their lives as path ways or “rites of pas sage

to  more  se ri ous  an ti so cial  be hav iors.  Au -

thor i ties  have  fre quently  de scribed  such

sig nif i cant  events,  es pe cially  in  chil dren’s

lives, as rites of pas sage (van Gennep,

1960; Turner, 1969; Myerhoff, Camino, &

Turner, 1987; Warfield-Coppock, 1992;

Delaney, 1995; Harvey & Rauch, 1997).

Rites of pas sage mark dis tinc tions in an

oth er wise  con tin u ous  life  course,  cel e -

brat ing  and  fa cil i tat ing  change  and  the

dis rup tion  of  stan dard  so cial  cat e go ries,

while at the same time pre serv ing them.

This rit ual pro cess achieves a shift in con -

scious ness that par al lels the youth’s new

social standing (Myerhoff, Camino, &

Turner, 1987).

For most groups and so ci et ies, rites of

pas sage for young peo ple usu ally in clude

be nign  forms  of  sep a ra tion,  prep a ra tion,

tran si tion,  and  ac knowl edg ment  (Delaney,

1995), and are based on life-af firm ing

needs for ac cep tance, cer e mony, and rec -

og ni tion.  But  in  cer tain  cul tures,  in clud ing

our own, these rites can be come per ni -

cious. For ex am ple, the rites of

cicatrization (the in duce ment of scars),

gen i tal  mu ti la tion,  and  teeth  goug ing  prac -

ticed today in some prim i tive cul tures are

anal o gous to mod ern forms of ex treme

body  mod i fi ca tion,  nee dle  shar ing,  and

gang ini ti a tion rituals that involve

committing violent or criminal acts.

With out prosocial adults to sup port

and care fully guide these rites and rit u als,

youth may upset the del i cate bal ance that

ex ists  be tween  rights  and  re spon si bil i ties,

caus ing what they may per ceive as fights

to de gen er ate into a li cense to act where

crime,  vi o lence,  and  vic tim iza tion  fol low

(Gar ri son, 1988). The re cent shoot ing

death of a 1 6-year-old in Co lum bus,

Ohio, for ex am ple, was de scribed as an

ini ti a tion act for a new mem ber of a rival

gang (Nirode, 1997). An other young man

de scribed his tran si tion into pu berty

without adult guidance in this way:

I was rest less and school was bor ing;

being good was like I’d been miss ing

out.. What mat tered was to

ex pe ri ence life, so I tried ev ery thing

there was. My first time of tak ing

drugs,  of  drink ing  my self  in ca pa ble,  of 

hav ing full sex with a girl—they all

hap pened with a rush, within just a

few weeks of me being four teen

(Parker, 1995, p. 32).

“I was rest less and school was bor ing;

being good was like I’d been miss ing

out... What mat tered was to

ex pe ri ence life, so I tried ev ery thing

there was.”

De vel op men tal  Path ways

Juan’s re count ing of his own life events

and per sonal acts also in di cates how the

clas sic rite of pas sage el e ments of sep a ra -

tion,  prep a ra tion,  tran si tion,  and

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ac knowl edg ment can go awry when not

guided or sup ported by the com mu nity. For

ex am ple,  with out  a  sep a ra tion  rit ual  fos -

tered by sig nif i cant adults, Juan’s trau matic

de tach ment from his mother con trib uted to

prob lems at school and even tu ally led to his

es ca lat ing  gang  in volve ment.

The ex pe ri ences of Juan and other

young peo ple with chronic misbehaviors

that be come se quen tially more harm ful to

them selves and oth ers par al lel the re -

search of Roif Loeber. Loeber and his

col leagues  ar tic u lated  a  de vel op men tal

model to de scribe how chil dren prog ress

from  dis rup tive  to  crim i nal  be hav iors

(Loeber & Schmaling, 1985). Ac cord ing to

these re search ers, some chil dren fol low

spe cific  de vel op men tal  path ways  that  lead

to  in creas ingly  dis rup tive  and  de lin quent

be hav ior. Es pe cially in boys, these be hav -

iors are dis played in a me thod i cal,

pro gres sive man ner with less serious

problem behaviors preceding more

serious ones.

Loeber found that these in creas ingly

dis rup tive  and  an ti so cial  be hav iors  in  child -

hood and ad o les cence roughly fol low a

se quence  of  pro gres sive  ac tiv ity  from  dif fi -

cult  tem per a ment  to  crim i nal  re cid i vism

(Loeber, 1990):

• Dif fi cult  tem per a ment

• Hy per ac tiv ity

• Overt con duct prob lems and/or ag -

gres sive ness

• With drawal

• Poor  peer  re la tion ships

• Ac a demic  prob lems

• Co vert or con ceal ing of con duct prob -

lems

• As so ci a tion  with  de vi ant  peers

• De lin quency  and  ar rest

• Re cid i vism.

“We learn from young peo ple like Juan

that  re sil ience  is  not  nec es sar ily  pretty

so cial,  or  law ful  Re sil ient  qual i ties  can

go be yond ac cepted so cial norms and

even to ward crim i nal ity when a child’s

cir cum stances  be come  des per ate  or

un sup ported  by  car ing  adults.”

Loeber’s the ory was field-tested be gin -

ning in 1986 with a lon gi tu di nal

in ves ti ga tion  in  Pitts burgh,  in volv ing  re -

peated con tacts with the same male

ju ve niles  and  their  pri mary  care tak ers

over a sub stan tial por tion of their de vel -

op men tal years (Huizinga, Loeber, &

Thomberry, 1993). This re search in quiry,

later known as the Pitts burgh Youth Study, 

con firmed that for the males stud ied, less

se ri ous  forms  of  de lin quency  de vel oped

into  dis tinct  be hav ioral  path ways  that

often  steered  in di vid u als  toward  more

serious criminal activity.

The Pitts burgh Youth Study also found

that boys who never pro gressed be yond

the first stage of any path way re ported

very low of fense rates dur ing the prime

de lin quency ages of 13 to 16. How ever, as 

soon as boys started to de velop their dis -

rup tive  and  de lin quent  be hav ior

char ac ter is tics  along  sev eral  di verse  path -

ways, the rate of se ri ous of fenses

in creased (Kelly, Loeber, Keenan, &

DeLamatre, 1997).

Path ways  and  Re sil ience

The  de vel op men tal  path ways  model

pro posed by Loeber (1990) ar gues that

dis rup tive  be hav iors  are  both  age-de pend -

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