Low crime
rates are
among these
advantages,and
good schools
are
another.Suburbanschools typically turn out students who get highscoreson
standardized
test s ,
and
they offer children many opportunities to
participate
in
extra-curricular
activities.Kingwood,
Texas,
isone such neighborhood .
Located
about thirty minutesnorth-
east
of Houston ,Kingwood is
a "master-planned"
community through which lushgreenbelts
and
championship golf courses
meander.
Homes
range
from
upper-middle-
class ,
tract
homes to custom-built mansions. As you might
expect,
there is
little
crime
and
almost no gang activity,
and
Kingwood ' s schools
are
among the most highly
rated
in the
state.
Consequently ,
back
in
1999,
residents
were
shocked when police
revealed
the identities of
a
group of
armed
robbers who
had
held up
several local
stores over
a
two-month period. The robbers
were all
current or former students of Kingwood High School ,
and,
surpr isingly ,they
were all
girls.The girls ,whose
ages ranged
from
16
to
18,
had named
their gang the "Queens of Armed Robbery."
Seventeen-year-old Usa Warzeka
typified the group of four girls.
Usa had
been
an
accomplished
athlete and
successful student
at
Kingwood High untilshe
began
to associatewith
a couple
of girlswho used drugs. She changed her
appear-ance
to
emulate
that of her new f r iends ,
and
her behavior toward her
parents became
disrespectfuL She dropped out of her school activities
and eventually
quit school
alto-
gether.
After
struggling with Usa'snewfound identity for months, her
parents
finally
made
her
leave
their home in the hope that
a
"tough-love"
approach
would turn her around .
Usa
moved in with one of her fr iends ,
and
shortly
thereafter
the group em-
barked
on their crime spree. Often high on cocaine dur ing their crimes ,the girls
re-garded
them
as
both
a
source of entertainment
and a
source of money for drugs
and
other necessitiesof the
"party-hearty"lifestyle
they
had adopted.
The partying
came
to
an
end when the girls ,whose images
were plainly
visible on
several surveillance tapes
in the establishments they
had
robbed ,
were arrested.
Oneof them received
a
lenient sentence in exchange for her testimony against the others.One girl decided to fight the charges,but
was eventually
found guilty
and
sent to prison anyway. The remaining two, including
Usa,pled
guilty in the hope that
a re-morseful attitude
would influence
a
jury to give them
a
light sentence.They
were
wrong; both girls
were
sentenced to seven years in prison.While injail awaiting sentencing,
Usa realized
the gr avit yof what she
had
becomeinvolved in.Insearchof
a
haven from the threatening
peer
environment of thejail, sheonce
again made
her bond swith her
parents
the primary socialr elationship in her
life.
Inprison,
Usa
finished high school
and earned an
associate's
degree.
When her
applica-
tion for
parole was
turned down in
2004,
her
parents and
family
were
thesupport net-work she turned to for consolation. Now she look sforward togetting out of prison
at
the end of her term
and
attending the University of
Texasat
Aust in,
a path
she
was
onbefore shegot caught up in the
lifestyle
that
eventually led
her to prison.
Usa's
experience might
be taken as an example
of Judith Rich Harris's
group
socialization theory
(Harris,
1998).
In Harris'sview, peers influence children' s
devel-
opment more strongly than
parents.
The reason ,says
Harris,
is that peers
are
the
people
with whom children
will
spend their
adult
lives.Therefore, they look to peers ,more than
parents,
for
behavioral
guidelines. Though
parents
may
attempt
to
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