Friendship network integration and peer deviance: Revisiting the mechanisms connecting juvenile arrest with subsequent offending

Abstract

We build on labeling theory and recent research on interpersonal exclusion to examine the role that integration into school-based friendship networks and involvement with deviant peers play in linking juvenile arrest to future offending. Our analyses use data from more than 13,000 students followed from sixth through 11th grade. First, we test associations of arrest with (1) friendship network integration, operationalized as within-individual changes in network centrality, and (2) peer deviance. Second, we test for heterogeneity in these associations by race, sex, and class. Third, we assess whether declines in network integration and increases in peer deviance explain associations between arrest and subsequent deviance. We find arrest associated with declines in network integration and that this association is stronger for females than males. We also find arrest associated with increases in peer deviance, especially for females. Finally, arrest is associated with increases in one’s own deviance, but we find little evidence that changes in peer relationships following criminal justice contact are responsible for this secondary deviance. Taken in the context of prior research, our results suggest that the mechanisms that contemporary labeling theory offers for explaining secondary deviance after legal system involvement may need to be revised.