Providentia

What Causes Delinquency?

Developmental theories suggest that affiliation with deviant peers and susceptibility to peer influence are important contributors to adolescent delinquency, but it is unclear how these variables impact antisocial behavior during the transition to adulthood, a period when most delinquent individuals decline in antisocial behavior.  An article published in the November 2009 issue of Developmental Psychology shows the results of a longitudinal study of 1,354 antisocial youth.  The researchers examine how individual variation in exposure to deviant peers and resistance to peer influence affect antisocial behavior from middle adolescence into young adulthood (ages 14 to 22 years).  Results showed that antisocial individuals choose to affiliate with deviant peers, and that affiliating with deviant peers is associated with an individual’s own delinquency. However, these complementary processes of selection and socialization operate in different developmental periods. In middle adolescence, both selection and socialization serve to make peers similar in antisocial behavior, but from ages 16 to 20 years, only socialization appears to be important. After age 20, the impact of peers on antisocial behavior disappears as individuals become increasingly resistant to peer influence, suggesting that the avoiding antisocial behavior may be tied to normative changes in peer relations that occur as individuals mature socially and emotionally.

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Man in Need of "Psychological Counseling" Arrested on Weapons Charges

A former Navy man has been arrested on weapons charges following a call from a convenience store clerk in Branchburg, New Jersey.  43-year old Lloyd Woodson was arrested after a patrolman approached him and he fled the scene.  Police searched the area and found him lying in bushes near a local trailer park.  He was subdued with pepper spray following a brief scuffle and police discovered he was wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a loaded assault rifle with four rounds of ammunition.  A search of his motel room turned up a grenade launcher, more rifles, a night-vision scope, a Middle-Eastern headdress, and a map of New York's Fort Drum.  At his arraignment hearing, Woodson made no comment except to acknowledge the judge.  Bail was set at $75,000. 

According to records, Woodson enlisted in the Navy in 1988 before deserting the following year.  He was eventually discharged in 1997 and has had multiple addresses since that time.  His wife, Tracy Everett, had sought a protective order against him following a 2008 incident outside their Forestville, Maryland home in which he told her that "if I did not let him back in I would be sorry."  She emphasized that he was not a violent individual and that he was "just a loner" who needs "psychological counseling".  

The FBI has stated that Woodson was not associated with any known terrorist groups but an investigation is still ongoing.  He faces charges of second-degree unlawful possession of firearms, fourth-degree possession of defaced firearms, and prohibited weapons-armoured penetrating bullets. 

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