Are criminals born or bred?

The police recently issued a warning in my area to local schools and parents to be wary of a gang of thieves on bikes targeting children as young as 11 as they wait for the school bus home. They're targeting kids that have their blazers off snatching them from their arms as they ride past. This is an organised gang of teens aged 13-18, they aren't doing it for a dare they're after mobile phones and money thats why they go for the blazers and its only girls they target. Thieves are thieves but you'd have to be pretty low to steal from a child. Do criminal elements like this only know crime from a young age through their families, bred to steal or are they just born that way?