Maturity, social and psychosexual, is the goal toward which the adolescent must strive with or without the formalized assistance of his society. Adolescence represents physical evolution, developing emancipation from the family, and establishment of normal heterosexual relations; adult status involves sexual, economic, and civic (sometimes ritualistic) privileges and responsibilities.

The hypothesis of the authors (a sociologist and a police officer) is that when a society does not make adequate preparation for the necessary passage of its youth into adult status, the adolescents create an equivalent to fill the void. The 'gang' structure is such an equivalent in the American culture; it is a harassing problem but not inevitable in such form, and probably would not occur with