Perspective Essay on the Code of the Streets

In Streetwise, Elijah Anderson (1990) discusses the social forces at work in an urban area he calls the Village-Northton. His is a sociological field study of the daily interactions between the residents of an area encompassing two communities--in his words, "one black and low income to very poor (with an extremely high infant mortality rate), [and] the other racially mixed but becoming increasingly middle to upper income and white" (Anderson, 1990, p. ix). In keeping with valid sociological fieldwork, Anderson (1990) immersed himself in the community from the summer of 1975 through the summer of 1989.

In the movie “Gangs of New York”, we see a city changed and reshaped through cultural influence of feuding individuals with different ideas. The movie is about a young man, Amsterdam Vance, who seeks to avenge his father, who was brutally murder in a gang dispute, against his adversary Bill the Butcher. On the surface the movie seems simple enough but in the back ground we see a cultural shift as immigrants come into America. Also we see political influences and material possession such as clothing and other belongings set people apart and define the social status of the

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

The starting point of violence takes place in communities and at home--not at school. Youth take what they hear and see at home and in their communities to school. The environment in some communities and households are positive and the presences of protective factors outweigh the high risk factors. However, there are communities and households where there is a lack of informal social control and high risk factors exist more than protective factors--, which affect youth in a negative manner.

The " Code of the Street" written by Eljah Anderson is an explanation for high rates violence among African-American Adolescents in Philadelphia. He wrote about poverty, lack of job, racial discrimination, rampant drug use and trafficking that leads to anti-social attitudes, violent behavior, alienation, and lack of hope for the future of the African Americas in Philadelphia.

Geoffrey Canada pens a book that is part biography, part social view, a very thoughtful look into inner-city violence and the rules surrounding it. The book describes how his personal history with violence influenced his work with youth and the programs that he has started to support them. Geoffrey Canada describes the progression of violence that had happened in his lifetime. He also points out that there is a disturbing difference between what the streets were like in the 1960s compared to those of today.

In the novel “Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City” written by Elijah Anderson, Elijah discusses how the environment and the economy affects the choices that youths in the inner-city make in life. Elijah agrees that the inner-city black America is extremely violent, but he asserts that there is this “code” individuals in these areas need to understand in order not to be harmed. Elijah supported this code using interviews and personal stories from individuals living in the inner-cities to support the idea that those who follow the code live an easier life than those who do not. Something important to point out from this novel is that violence does not occur out of nowhere, but

An effort to understand and explain violence and related problems in the inner city are demonstrated within Elijah Anderson’s Code of the Street. Elijah exhibits the different lifestyles of the citizens in Germantown, Philadelphia by thoroughly explaining the code through different themes that make up the inner city lifestyle such as, family, violence, drugs, relationships or poverty through his point of view and people within the city as well.

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.

By far the most interesting topic to me the semester was The Code of The Streets by Elijah Anderson. After reading this, I started searching for solutions in my head. I refuse to believe that this is “how things are”. It’s unacceptable. The “eye for an eye” and “snitches get stitches” mentality that the people who live in black inner city communities is very troubling. What’s even more troubling is the fact that it’s due to their lack of faith in the justice system, rightfully so. These people are living in a world where they believe that the police are against them. The police, who are supposed to be their protectors are, in many cases, doing the opposite. However, I don’t believe that police officers are the enemy. I do think that everyone,

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

In his book Elijah Anderson tries to describe how life is, living in a black poor community in an American town known as Inner-city. In this area everyone is struggling financially and seem distant from the rest of America. The main social class in this town is the “decent” and the “street” families as the community has labeled them. The labeling by the local is as a result of social contest between the inhabitants. The line between a decent and street family is usually very thin, it’s based on a family evaluation of itself labeling itself decent and the other street. The irony is that families bearing a street label may value itself as decent and still valuing other families’ street. However, this labels form the basis of understanding inner-city community lifestyle. The community has many of the white society middle class values but they know the values don’t hold water in the street. They say it does not provide the attitude of a person who can take care of themselves in the street.

Children living on the streets in Baltimore are living trying to be children, while also being almost as low as they can get in society. With little power caused by institutional oppression, people look to find power anywhere they can, which means often leads to violence in order to find power over other people. Children are exposed to these ideas about masculinity by the adults around them, such as when children are seen emulating Omar shooting people. Their role models come from their environment, and their environment incites violence as the way to have power. These children are already chasing manhood, which “in the inner-city means taking the prerogatives of men with respect to strangers, other men, and women - being distinguished,” (Anderson, 1994, 12). These ideas come to light at an early age, as seen in season 4, where to middle school boys allegedly rape a girl in the school bathroom. They are already trying to find their power and manhood through violence and hurting others.

Wolfgang and Ferracuti furthered the subculture of violence theory from the insights of cultural deviance theorists before them. Basing their theorizations entirely upon inferences from available statistics on homicide at that time, which illustrated a concentration of violent crime in primarily poor, racialized neighborhoods in Philadelphia. Through these statistics, the authors deduce that subcultural violence is a uniquely marginalized male phenomenon. Wolfgang and Ferracuti argue that violence is a