The Saints, children of stable, white upper-middle-class families, were constantly occupied with truancy, drinking, wild driving, petty theft, and vandalism. However no one was officially arrested for any misdeed during the two years they were observed for this study. The Roughnecks, lower-class white boys, were constantly in trouble with police and community even though their rate of delinquency was about equal with that of the Saints. The local police saw the Saints as good boys who were among the leaders of the youth in the community; good boys who just went in for an occasional prank. The Roughnecks were viewed by the community as kids who were in for trouble because they were constantly involved with the police. The criteria by which to measure qualitative differences in these two groups' behavior included the seriousness of offenses. Differential treatment of the two gangs resulted in part because one gang was infinitely more visible than the other. The community responded to the Roughnecks as boys in trouble, and the boys agreed with that perception. Their pattern of deviancy was reinforced, and breaking away from it became increasingly unlikely.