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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