Code Of The Streets Essay

Ann Petry’s novel The Street (1946) is a commentary on the social injustices that confronted the protagonist Lutie Johnson. Lutie is a single African American mother who lives in segregated America during the 1940’s. Throughout the novel, we see that during this time period Lutie is confronted by racism, sexism, and classism on a daily basis while in her pursuit of the American Dream for herself and her son Bub. Lutie is convinced that if she follows the example of Benjamin Franklin, by working hard and saving wisely, she will be able to achieve the dream of being financially independent and therefore be able to move out from the Street in which she is confined to. Benjamin Franklin is embodied in the text through the character Junto. It is Junto that is supposed to get Lutie closer towards her dream. However, Junto, through his secret manipulations tries to possess Lutie sexually, ultimately leading Lutie towards her path of destruction and she ends up committing the murder of Junto’s henchman, Boots. Junto represents the writer Petry’s deep disillusionment with this cultural myth of the so-called American dream. In Richard Wright’s novel Native Son (1940), The protagonist Bigger Thomas, is a 20-year-old African American youth who grew up in segregated America during the 1930s. Throughout this novel, we see Bigger also striving towards the pursuit of the American Dream. Bigger risks everything to not compromise his pursuit towards success. Unfortunately, he ends up falling

Robberies, violence and drug-dealing transgressions are a constant fear of many. The decent families although opposed to the norms of the ghetto, encourage their children to understand and respect the code of the streets in an effort to protect themselves. Also, many youths in the inner-cities try to behave as others within their sub-culture. A child might dress or speak a certain way that a race is labeled to be standard to fit in. For example, a Caucasian individual may dress in baggy clothes and speak in slang in public to imitate what people label the African American youth to be uniform. However, this individual in some instances could act completely different at home or in other environments such as family gatherings or church.

The Elijah Anderson’s article, “Code of the Streets” is a perfect illustration for cultural arguments because it involves environments that are susceptible to learning a criminal culture; even up to a point of promoting that type of criminal behavior as “normal”. It also has links to Differential Association and Social Learning theories of crime

Adolescent Black males throughout the years have been subject and victim to numerous economic, socioeconomic, and environmental disadvantages. In many inner-city neighborhoods, these disadvantages have led to an increase in violence among these adolescent African American males, especially in the educational system. Violence among African American males in schools is something that increases tremendously each year; a 2010 study in Education Week showed that over 70% of the students involved in school-related arrests or referred to law enforcement were African American students. This can be explained

The Book “Fist Stick Knife Gun” by Geoffrey Canada is a biographical account of his childhood in the south Bronx. He and his 4 brothers were raised by only their mother. She would survive on no more than ten dollars a week. He moved several times as a child until finally landing on union avenue, the place were many of his life lessons were learned and at times applied. He learned about the ranking process of kids on union Ave. and how the only way to improve your status was to use your fists to fight your way up the chain. Looking back Geoffrey Canada notices the major shift in attitudes concerning the rules of the streets. What once was harmless fist fighting has now turned over to

Dr. Garbarino (1999) proposes common factors that are trending when it comes to an increase in violence among young boys, but does not state that such trends are causes of violence. Risk factors, especially in inner-city neighborhoods, such as poor quality of education, low socioeconomic status, limited healthcare options, multiple family residences, lack of a father figure, and high crime may lead an increase in violent nature for male youth. In addition, the book mentions four specific problems that provide a foundation for violence. These four problems include, attachment, abandonment by mother, abandonment by father, and

The Book "Fist Stick Knife Gun" by Geoffrey Canada is a biographical account of his childhood in the south Bronx. He and his 4 brothers were raised by only their mother. She would survive on no more than ten dollars a week. He moved several times as a child until finally landing on union avenue, the place were many of his life lessons were learned and at times applied. He learned about the ranking process of kids on union Ave. and how the only way to improve your status was to use your fists to fight your way up the chain. Looking back Geoffrey Canada notices the major shift in attitudes concerning the rules of the streets. What once was

The Code of the street main aspect is to examine the influence of neighborhood street culture on violent delinquency among African-American adolescents in which Anderson predicts the effect of street code values about violence is intensify in neighborhood where street culture is widely affirm.

Throughout the article “The Code of the Streets,” Elijah Anderson explains the differences between “decent” and “street” people that can be applied to the approaches of social control, labeling, and social conflict theories when talking about the violence among inner cities due to cultural adaptations.

In this paper, I plan to first describe the “Code of the Street” which is a term coined and a book written by Elijah Anderson. I would also summarize and describe two journal articles that test Anderson’s idea of the “Code of the Street” for a more definite explanation. I will tell how the two articles that I have chosen relates to some of the concepts that Anderson talked about in the book. I will then define general strain theory and social learning or differential association theory. Lastly, I will explain how general strain theory and social learning theory or differential association theory explain some of the behaviors that were seen by the individuals in the book published by Anderson. I will point out some of the individual’s behavior and demonstrate whether it may lead to crime or whether the behavior was learned in any way.

For this assignment I decided to read the book Code of the Street: decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city by Elijah Anderson. This book is about how inner city people live and try and survive by living with the code of the streets. The code of the streets is basically morals and values that these people have. Most of the time it is the way they need to act to survive. Continuing on within this book review I am going to discuss the main points and arguments that Anderson portrays within the book. The main points that the book has, goes along with the chapters. These points consist of Street and decent families, respect, drugs violence, street crime, decent daddy, the mating game, black inner city grandmother. Now within

When you skim the pages of The Atlantic newspaper (1994 edition) and view the article ‘The Code of the Streets’ published by author Elijah Anderson curiosity will stimulate your mind to reflect on the critical time periods and the chosen words to describe the society. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to engage readers in the theoretical arguments and to stimulate the mind to ask sociological and criminological questions regarding the information present in ‘The Code of the Streets.’

It is not the migration of jobs and respect becoming the new social currency that he argues for as reasons for increased difficulties in inner city life, but instead he states that he believes the introduction of crack cocaine to the general public that led to the deterioration of inner city neighborhoods. While Anderson mentions crack cocaine when talking about the reasons why grandparents often get custody, he does not attribute this to the prevalence of violence among the neighborhood. However, Dave Kopel also cites the lack of stable families in the inner city as another factor that led to the rise in violence, which is something that Anderson would most likely agree with (Kopel). While a study done by the government does not specifically mention respect of the reasoning for escalation of violence, they do have statistics stating that “several studies have shown that aggressive children tend to be hypersensitive to cues of threat, selectively attend to aggressive cues, and overlook other situational factors that may have influenced the person’s behavior” (Cooley-Strickland, 2009). This corresponds with Anderson’s statements that actions that people do not consider disrespectful or threatening in other locations, might be misconstrued as a prelude to a physical attack in the inner city (Location

Risk factors are centered around parents and caregivers, who is a child’s first form off insight on how relationships and ultimately how the world and its inhabitants function. In many cases, if the caregiver is not emotionally or financially stable, which puts a child at a much higher risk to experience some form of abuse. This concept is prevalent throughout Jorja Leap’s book “Jumped in.” Many of the people who joined the gang life resorted to the hood because their parents were either incarcerated, too drugged out, or dead. This is a form of abuse and this emotional trauma leads the children to turn to find another form of family, which is the “hood.” Community violence is usually a negative result that comes from some form of child

Urban America is growing at an enormous rate with the continuous influx of people leaving the big cities and moving into the suburbs. Oklahoma City is one of the cities which realized they were not pedestrian friendly and with Mayor Mick Cornett help was able to revitalize the city into a more pedestrian friendly city. This in turn brought more people and business into the city Cornett, M. (2013). Whether you live in the city or a community, the United States is attempting to become a healthier place to live, which means a more pedestrian friendly way of life. Sidewalks are important for neighborhood’s and community’s, they help connect us with our neighbors, the ability to travel in a safe environment throughout the community in a safe way,