Is Richard a "bad" boy? When should behavior be blamed on the person and when should it be blamed on the environment?

At the young age of 6, Richard is still very susceptible to his environment. He can not yet evaluate for himself that what he is doing is "bad". Because of this, Richard is not a bad boy. He simply lives in an unstable environment that has a negative influence on him. For example, the boys at his school who taught him inappropriate language were the ones to blame for Richard repeating the words around the city. Richard recollects, "On the playground at noon I attached myself to a group of older boys and fallowed them about, listening to their talk, asking countless questions. During that noon hour I learned all the four letter words describing physiological and sex functions...Yet when the school let out that first day, I ran joyously home with a brain burdened with racy and daring knowledge...I went from window to window and printed in huge soap-letters all my newly acquired four letter words" (25). We see clearly here the cause and effect of Richard's environment and Richards’s behavior. He was eager to learn and express himself, however unfortunately his environment had caused him to learn the wrong things. This is a continuing trend throughout the novel. For example, Richard runs away from the orphanage because he was hungry and miserable (31). Though running away may be considered bad, under these circumstances, he is simply reacting to his environment. Richard is not a bad boy. He is simply a good boy in a bad environment.
There is a fine line between when bad behavior becomes the fault of the person instead of the environment. Bad behavior is the fault of the person when they make a conscious decision to do wrong. This would occur without any outside influence. Bad behavior is the fault of the environment when a person is not making a choice, but simply reacting to the environment or has been molded by their environment to a great extent. For example, Richards’s father orders his son to kill an annoying kitten. Richard remembers, "I fount a piece of rope, made a noose, slipped it about the kitten's neck, pulled it over a nail, then jerked the animal clear off the ground" (11). In this case Richard was just reacting to his environment to smite his father. If he had strangled his kitten for his own enjoyment, Richard would really be a bad boy. Many times a person makes the conscious decision to do wrong, but in Richard's case, the environment is the culprit.