Hanging out with the wrong crowd? The role of unstructured socializing in adolescents' specialization in delinquency and substance use

Objectives: Despite abundant attention to offending specialization in criminology, scholars have only recently started to explore opportunity-driven explanations for within-individual patterns of specialization. The current study examines whether unstructured socializing with specific friends can explain within-individual changes in adolescents’ degree of specialization in delinquency and substance use. Methods: Data were derived from the PROSPER Peers Project, a longitudinal study consisting of five waves of data on 11,183 adolescents (aged 10 to 17). The data include self-reports about engagement in delinquency and substance use, sociometric information, and information on the time respondents reported spending in unstructured socializing with their nominated friends. Hypotheses were tested with negative binomial and binomial logit multilevel models. Results: The findings indicate that involvement in unstructured socializing with friends who steal, vandalize, commit violence, use alcohol, use cigarettes, or use drugs enhances adolescents’ risks for engagement in those respective behaviors. Such activity affects adolescents’ quantitative engagement as well as their level of specialization in these behaviors.Conclusions: The study indicates that routine activity—in particular involvement in unstructured socializing—explains within-individual changes in deviance specialization among adolescents. Thus, exposure to opportunities can explain why adolescents specialize in certain types of delinquency and substance use in one time-period, and in other types of behavior in other time-periods. This adds a proximate explanation for this phenomenon to other explanations that focus on local life circumstances and peer group affiliation.

Unstructured Socializing with Peers, Low Self-Control, and Substance Use

Research consistently finds that unstructured socializing with peers and low self-control are both positively associated with substance use among adolescents. However, largely absent from the literature is a consideration of whether unstructured socializing with peers and low self-control have differential and interactive effects when predicting usage of different classifications of drugs. The current study addresses these issues using data collected on a statewide sample of middle school and high school students who participated in the 2017 Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey. Results indicate that (1) unstructured socializing with peers is a stronger predictor of soft drug use than low self-control, (2) low self-control is a stronger predictor of hard drug use than unstructured socializing with peers, and (3) the effect of unstructured socializing on both soft and hard drug use is diminished among adolescents who are lower in self-control.

Deviant Versus Nondeviant Routines, Social Guardianship and Adolescent Victimization in the Rural Context of China

There is limited knowledge on the possible pathways of victimization among rural dwellers during adolescence in developing contexts, such as rural China, where victimization may compound developmental disadvantages of rural adolescents. Guided by the lifestyle/routine activity theory, the goal of this study thus was to examine how far delinquent lifestyles (delinquent involvement and delinquent peer association); nondeviant routine activities (unstructured socializing with peers, structured activities, and solitary activities); and social guardianship within family, school, and neighborhood contribute to juvenile victimization in a rural setting. The outcomes of interest covered direct victimization (violent, property, and sexual) and indirect victimization (witnessing community violence). The study included 2,839 adolescents (51.2% male; mean age = 13.88 ± 0.90 years) from 30 middle schools in rural China. The delinquent peer influence as a risk factor of direct and indirect victimization appeared to be more profound than delinquent involvement. Solitary activities consistently put rural adolescents at greater risk of direct and indirect victimization, and their role was stronger than that of rural adolescents’ delinquent involvement. No victimization outcomes were predicted by unstructured socializing with peers and structured activities. Attachment to family caregivers and neighborhood cohesion were the strongest social guardianship predictors across all forms of victimization. These results suggest that alongside social guardianship and delinquent lifestyles, rural isolation should be addressed in managing juvenile victimization. The insignificant role of unstructured socializing with peers may raise the need to clarify its conceptual relevance to rural settings. The implications for improving the underdeveloped preventive measures against victimization of rural adolescent populations in developing societies are described.

School Start Times, Delinquency, and Substance Use: A Criminological Perspective

Research finds a lack of sleep during adolescence is associated with a variety of negative outcomes and suggests that early school start times contribute to this problem. Criminologists have largely overlooked the relevance of school start times for adolescent delinquency and substance use, precluding multidisciplinary collaborations between criminologists and other social and health scientists that might further elucidate emerging policy initiatives. We provide a theoretically informed criminological perspective explicating the mechanisms through which delaying school start times may reduce delinquency and substance use. Two pathways are proposed: one focused on self-control and another on unstructured socializing with peers. After discussing evidence supporting the pathways, this article outlines a research agenda for criminologists to contribute to understudied portions of the model.

Life in the Fast Lane: Drugs, Hedonistic Lifestyles, and Economic Crime

We examine whether economic crimes are committed to fund drug addiction and/or to fund a hedonistic lifestyle. To address motivation, we estimate reciprocal relationships between economic crime and drug use and between economic crime and hedonistic activity generally. Analyses are based on event calendar data collected from 715 male offenders. Both simultaneous (within-month) relationships and effects involving a 1-month lag are examined. Offenders were more likely to engage in property crime and drug dealing during months in which they used hard drugs, marijuana, and alcohol, and when they engaged in more frequent unstructured socializing. The results from lagged models suggested that hedonistic activities lead to economic crime and economic crime creates opportunities for more frequent hedonistic activity.

Unstructured Socializing With Peers and Risk of Substance Use: Where Does the Risk Begin?

Research finds that unstructured socializing with peers is positively associated with substance use, but important issues remain underexamined. Specifically, does the risk of substance use resulting from time spent engaged in unstructured socializing with peers begin immediately, or is a certain minimum threshold of time spent with peers required? To investigate this, data were collected on a statewide sample of adolescents from Florida. Results indicate the minimum required amount of time spent engaging in unstructured socializing with peers to pose a risk of alcohol or marijuana use is 3 to 5 hr per week. For tobacco use outcomes, the minimum number of hours required to pose a risk is higher, particularly for cigarette use, where risk begins at more than 20 hr per week. Supplementary analyses indicate that for alcohol and marijuana use there is a decelerating risk stemming from additional hours spent engaging in unstructured socializing with peers.