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The immediate social environment is primarily responsible for criminality in our society, e.g., broken families, poor parenting, low quality educational experiences, delinquent peer relations, poverty, lack of equal economic opportunity, inadequate socialization to the values implicit in the American culture, etc.

Crime occurs when the forces that bind people to society are weakened or broken. When the social bonds that individuals have to parents, peers, and important social institutions like the school or the workplace are strong, they fear that their criminal activity may jeopardize their relative position in society and refuse to run the risk of losing meaningful social relationships, careers, etc. Generally, adolescents have weaker bonds to conventional society than adults.