| It has long been a staple finding of criminological research (for
example Warr and Stafford 1991; other refs) that having delinquent or
criminal peers increases the chance that a person engages in delinquent
and criminal behavior. This is thought to be especially true for young
people. However, even in high crime neighborhoods there are significant
numbers of young people, even those who have delinquent and criminal
peers, that manage to stay out of trouble. Based on the data from a
multi-wave comparative study of delinquent and non-delinquent youth in
three high crime Philadelphia neighborhoods we argue that within peer
groups young people are often prohibited from engaging in delinquent
behavior by delinquent peers. We explore the reasons for this, and
suggest that the often contradictory norms found in peer groups serve
merely to ensure that individuals whose talents can take them beyond
their origins not get involved in behavior that can threaten their
future. We suggest that this twist on cumulative continuity has
implications for how we think of the relationship between peers and
delinquency.
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Updated 05/20/2006