Marked for the First Time: The Impact of Juvenile Justice Processing on Friendship Dynamics

• In Event: Peers and Crime: Recent Advances and Future Directions

Abstract

Involvement in the juvenile justice system contributes to an increased risk for experiencing a range of negative developmental outcomes. Still, the first time an adolescent comes into official contact with the system may be particularly consequential because it serves to distinguish these adolescents early on from more ‘normative’ peers. Being labeled by juvenile justice system processing may lead adolescents to gravitate towards other criminally involved peers and move away from those not marked by the system. Using longitudinal data from the Crossroads Study, the current study evaluates how juvenile justice system processing impacts the criminogenic makeup of friendship networks of first-time adolescent offenders. Findings suggest that the type of processing (i.e., formal v. informal) and length of time adolescents carry a particular label predict differences in the addition and maintenance of friendships with criminally involved individuals. The current study discusses how decisions by criminal justice actors set into motion shifts in peer processes that negatively alter the composition of friendship networks and describes how the study of peers should consider how deviant influences enter an adolescent’s social world.

Authors

• Zachary R. Rowan, University of California, Irvine

• Elizabeth Cauffman, University of California, Irvine

• Paul J. Frick, Louisiana State University