Comparing Code Of The Street: Delinquency, Violence And Moral Life

The predominate theory of the social structure perspective that will be applied to Boyz N the Hood is Robert Merton’s Anomie/Strain theory and Robert Agnew’s General Strain theory which closely applies to Merton’s. The strain theory holds that crime is a function of the conflict between goals people have and the means that they can use to obtain them legally. Most people desire wealth, material possessions, power, prestige, and other life comforts. Although these social and economic goals are common to people in all economic standings, strain theorists insist these goals are class dependent. Members of the lower class are unable to achieve these goals of success through conventional or legal means. In return they feel anger, frustration, and resentment, which is referred to as the “strain.” Lower class citizens can either accept their conditions and live out their days being socially responsible or they can choose alternate means of achieving success illegally. These means can include but are not limited to theft, violence, or drug trafficking.

Gangs have been a growing issue across the United States for many decades now. Youth gang violence may have started around the ‘50s, but did not become a serious issue until the ‘80s and from there went through a downward spiral in some cities like downtown Los Angeles, which was where the notorious Bloods and Crips gangs both started. First, let’s simply define a gang as a group of people, mostly men ranging for ages 14-30, who claim territory and use it to make money for themselves and their neighborhood through illegal activities such as trafficking drugs and weapons. There are many reasons and components that are factored in when conducting research to hypothesize “why do people join gangs?” That is why it is necessary to compare and contrast all the social, biological, psychological, developmental, and substance abuse aspects and relate it to joining a gang. It is also important to touch base on the differences between males and females that join gangs, such as power differentials, social learning differences and social stratification differences.

Abstract: This paper will discuss the correlation of youth gangs and how the cognitive and social learning theory comes in to play, and why female and male juveniles end up in the system. It will touch bases on how youth surroundings have a lot to do with the decisions they choose to make and the life style they end up living. Gangs usually recruit youth off the street, if a child sees that being a part of a gang is an everyday thing and is normal then they will be influenced more to do that. The cognitive theory ultimately states that a child learns from observing and from there environment. This essay will touch on the different statistics and the reasoning for youth gangs and gangs in general, it will also show statics of youth who are apart of gangs and are incarcerated. It will also show how it correlates with the cognitive theory and social learning theory.

Using the stereotypes of the American Culture, this study by Alleyne and Wood is based on Gang Involvement in a British setting. The study examines individual, social and environmental factors that can have an impact on gang-involved youths or non-gang involved youths. In order to find which factors play a role on involved/non-involved gang youth, the authors test for measure of individual delinquency, neighborhood gangs, parental management, commitment to school, and deviant peers. To help differentiate amongst the factors, the authors use a structural equation modeling, which provided the results in a statistical measure. Based off of the results, gang-involved youths were older than non-gang involved youths and that individual delinquency and neighborhood gangs predicted higher chances of gang involvement. The other factors of parental management, commitment to school and deviant peer pressure provided an indirect relationship to gang involvement.

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.

Charles Murray (1990) had developed a theory called the ‘underclass’, this theory categorises those living in poverty and defines them as non-working, inadequate and dangerous to society. Such writings have been an influence on the right realists and have a need to reinforce personal responsibility for an individual’s behaviour. Murray goes on to discuss two different types of underclass, firstly, the poor. These are people that only have low income but maintain their morals and standards and secondly, there are those with low income and their morals and standards match that. Those households with low standards are stereotyped as untidy and contain drunken and disorderly behaviour. He claims the men cannot keep jobs and the children are ill-educated resulting in antisocial behaviour and juvenile delinquency. This theory talks about a ‘fear of crime’ that would be instilled into communities by the underclass because the underclass is a classic example of the habitual criminal.

When it comes to identifying individuals within various economic and social standpoints, there is a large distinction among the lower-class individuals. Over the years there has been a more encouraged as well as enforced separation between two groups, the decent and the street families. Found within Reading for Sociology, edited by Garth Massy is a short reading, titled The Code of the Street by Elijah Anderson, one may read about the concept of these two groups and how they were picked apart based on their differences and the use of the “code of the streets,” which is, “a set of informal rules governing interpersonal public behavior; including violence” (Massey 104-105). There is a great misunderstanding when it comes to these groups way of

In the first part of this article Anderson talked about the interpersonal violence and aggression in the black inner-city community. He talked about the environment people grow up in and the two groups they are classified as decent, people with good morals and want to be good people, and street, people who have evolved into the way of the streets and using violence to gain respect. After that he talked about, “the code of the streets”, which is when the street group does anything to be socially on top of their peers. For example if somebody disrespects them, they have no quarrels with attacking a person over the smallest thing and if they lose the attack they will continue to retaliate until they are superiorly respected.

Cohen posited that many working-class boys are not only concerned with financial success, but also seek the goal of “middle-class status,” which often causes strain due to the lack of means for attainment (Cohen, 1955). While criminal activity may provide monetary rewards, it is unlikely to produce middle-class status. As a result, individuals may adapt though rebellion which may include a new set of goals and means for attainment. For example, criminal gangs are less likely to seek status through home ownership or stable employment, and are more likely to value violence or a reputation for violence, or respect from other gang members resulting from criminal

The corner boy is the most common response. They are not chronically delinquent but may be involved in petty or status offenses. He is loyal to his peers and eventually becomes a stable member of his neighborhood. The college boy embraces the cultural and social values of the middle class and strives to be successful by these standards. These youths are on an almost hopeless path because they are ill-equipped academically, socially, and linguistically to achieve the rewards of middle class life. The delinquent boy adopts a set of norms and principles in direct opposition to middle class values. They live for the day and do not think about tomorrow. They go against efforts made by family, school, or other sources of authority to control their behavior. The attraction, loyalty, and solidarity are some of the reasons they join gangs along with the gangs perception of autonomy and independence. Reaction formation is the result of the delinquent boy’s inability to succeed. The real problem for Cohen is status frustration, not blocked opportunity (Siegel, 2013). Lower-class youth desire approval and status, but because they cannot meet middle-class criteria, they become frustrated (Criminology chapter 4 outline sagepub.com). They overreact to any perceived threat or slight. They are also willing to take risk, violate the law, and flout middle-class conventions. Cohen’s work explains the factors that promote and sustain a

Following Cohen’s subcultural theory of Delinquent boys, Walter B. Miller (1958) examined adolescent street corner groups in lower class communities in Boston, United States. Miller derived at different and almost opposing conclusion in relation to Cohen’s finding. To understand the difference in findings between Cohen’s and Miller’s work, it is essential to understand the research questions they were asking and the way in which the research was conducted. For Miller, he was looking for a specific type of delinquency in lower classes, one that transcends into law violating behavior by the adolescent street corner groups in lower class communities. Miller implemented ethnography which relied on direct observations as a technique to understand his research group. He hypothesized the following, “dominant components of motivation underlying these acts consists in a direct attempt by the actor to adhere to forms of behavior, and to achieve standards of value as they are defined within that community” (Miller, 1958, p. 5) . Through his research and findings it was understood that middle class standards were less important to gang delinquency, this is in direct disagreement with Cohen’s work which outlined that lower class groups, specifically youths were engaging in law breaking and illegal behavior because of their inability to achieve a social status and maintain it – strive to become the middle class (Cohen, 1955).

Although subcultural theories give a good explanation of juvenile delinquency and adolescent group crime, the paramount weakness of these theories stems from precisely this: an exaggeration on the importance of a gang response to crimes. It places far too much emphasis on a group response rather than on individual responses. In spite of the fact that most juvenile crime such as joy-riding are carried out by ‘gangs’, these theories do not succeed to explain why crimes such as rape and murder, which are very individualistic, occur. Most of the subcultural theorists, including Shaw and Mckay, Cloward and Ohlin, and especially Sutherland and Cressey, stress the importance of the peer group and the association and labels which one has in life. Sutherland

Some members of delinquent gangs may be the sole carriers of a particular subculture in a particular location, and some are shared. For example conflict subcultures are shared by rival fighting gangs among whom individual and group status involves values related to defense of turf and reputation and norms loyal of these values. Some subcultures oriented to theft and other forms of property crime which they are connected with a particular group. Some property crime involves more organizing and planning in order to succeed. Other crimes such as mugging may involve only one person who shares the same subculture as the larger group. In an article by Terry William’s it states that delinquent subcultures contain elements of both youth and adult cultures. It also stated that to speak of youth culture is to symbolize a subculture of the larger adult-dominated and institutionally defined culture (1989). Many of criminal subculture shares a symbolic relationship with their customs, manly the people

After watching “The City of God”, I personally can see the correlation that crime plays in association with poverty, social influence, and lack of law and order. Though my perspective vastly varies from that of sociological theorists, I think we can both conclude that this movie is an extreme representation as to what can occur when society shuns away disadvantaged youths to a place that lacks justice as well as ethical and moral responsibilities. Sociological perspectives regarding crime emphasize the interconnections between conformity and deviance in different social contexts (cite). In the following paper I will attempt to analyze three sociological theories and apply their views to the

For many reasons that have been much of the focus of this book, many African American children and teens live in lower class neighborhoods. Working with delinquent gangs in Roxbury, Massachusetts, a poor neighborhood within the city of Boston, Walter Miller developed a theory to help explain delinquency by lower class youth. Miller’s theory seeks to understand how the “culture of poverty” and America’s underclass produces delinquency, especially in gangs (Regoli, Hewitt and Delisi, 2014).