Other factors examined include behavioral problems, and excluded persons as parents themselves. Data came from tape-recorded, semi-structured interviews with young offenders and from a review of the literature. The analysis emphasizes that the data are consistent and that research has established the crucial influences on youth development and the points at which they make an impact. Thus, becoming criminal is not inevitable or genetically based, and that it is unnecessary in that experiences could have been different at every stage of the young person’s development. The analysis concludes that several kinds of interventions could be effective. Findings suggest that schools could emphasize purposes beyond a focus on students’ preparation for employability, that bullying should be handled as something utterly abhorrent to the social system of the school, more parent involvement in the school, and recognition that early intervention is far less expensive than the later attempts to involve the paraphernalia of the judicial system. Index and chapter reference lists