“Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City” by E. Anderson Essay (Book Review)

Scientific findings of Elijah Anderson, Sociology Professor of Yale University, address the issue of adolescent violence within African-American communities. His long-standing studies (Andersen 1989, 1990, 1994, 1998) have taken shape in the Code of the Street (2000).

In his work, Anderson describes the peculiarities of values, behavior and interpersonal relations within the inner-city communities. He provides a notion of the Street Code, which explains the essence of the African-American adolescent violence.

Although, according to some authors’ opinions, many questions about validity of Anderson’s findings have remained, the Street Code theory statements have been appreciated by the criminological community and taken to their arsenal.

Andersen gives the notion of two types of environment, decent and street family, and their influence on an individual’s values and behavior. These two types co-exist within the inner-city community, not being isolated from each other in their everyday life.

Decent families have middle incomes and strong integration to the whole community’s values and role models. Street families’ values do not coincide with those “mainstream”, their role models differ from the generally accepted.

According to Anderson, decent families appreciate family values and good relations between the family members. They work hard, go to church and keep hope for the better future for their children. Street families’ values are influenced by the spirit of despair and hopelessness. These families’ incomes are low, and hard work is not considered of big importance. In order to get the easy money, the members of the street families are often engaged in drug dealing and other crimes (35).

However, Anderson does not give any estimation to moral values of both groups: “street” does not mean “bad”, as well as “decent” is not obligatory better than “street”.

To sum up, the basic differences between decent and street families, according to Anderson’s classification, are middle income versus low income, mainstream values versus subculture values, and hope versus despair. This helps to understand the essence of the Street Code concept, presented by Anderson in his work.

Feeling no hope for the prosperous future, street families focus on surviving “here and now” and by all means. Within the environment, where the state law does not stay high, the street families have formed a set of street values, so-called Code of the Streets. The Code is an informal guide for building interpersonal relations within an inner-city community.

Anderson puts to the center of the Code the issue of respect. It becomes a treasure that is defended eagerly by the street family members. The violation of the Code rules is penalized severely within the inner-city communities. Correspondingly, the decent kids also have to consider the Street Code rules and often adopt elements of the street demeanor.

In his Code of the Street, Anderson makes a persuasive psychological assumption that having no reason to be proud makes street people conquer respect by means of violence and aggression.

The behavior that brings respect within the inner-city community differs from that within the rest of mainstream society, or, it is possible to say, it is completely opposite to it. Hard work and getting an education are considered to be a waste of time; friendliness, strong relations and religion are despised.

Instead, respect can be deserved using showing aggression, perceived in these communities as strength, getting effortless easy money and desperate violent self-defense. Having “juice”, as respect is often called in the streets, means, first of all, ability to take care of yourself by all means (73). Consequently, to prevent attack, one has to choose offensive tactics and attack first. The Street Code declares that since one has shown his vulnerability, he will be insulted many times, being perceived as an easy target.

Thus, in order to survive, street kids inherit understanding of the Code quite early. They face the deviant models of behavior within the family, get slight upbringing and cannot be proud of good marks or other success in education, as decent kids. They conquer their “juice” by means of engagement to crimes, deviant behavior and showing aggressiveness. Street kids take part in drug trade, thefts and street fights.

For the inner-city kids, it is important to be a member of a big strong street family, as the fewer people are at your side, the more vulnerable one is.

In his book, Anderson marks numerous cases of early sex and teen pregnancy in the inner city, especially among the street family kids. To have a mate means to be an adult. Despite being not against having children as a sign of their masculinity, young males are not willing to take responsibility and build close relations (147).

Considering this, it is not difficult to make an assumption about the underlying reason for this phenomenon: the models of relation which young people show reflect those within their families. As this model has been carried by their fathers, who left concerns about their survival to young mothers, young males consider this behavior allowable and essential, which forms a kind of a vicious circle, taking place through generations.

The author assumes that low living standard is an explanation for this model, and this is consonant to other sociological conclusions, which mark correlation between the community’s prosperity and education level, and the quality of family relations, which include stability and responsibility, attention paid to the kids’ upbringing.

Anderson also describes the young inner-city females’ vision of relationships with their mates. In their conversations, street girls use such terms as a “nothin’ man” and a “good man”. He defines a nothin’ man as “a man who is out to use every woman he can for himself. He’s something like a pimp. Don’t care ‘bout nobody but himself” (167). The author also marks that, according to the Code, a “good man” risks to be evaluated as a “pussy”, a wimp. It is interesting, that this evaluation can be given by both males and females, as the inner-city girls, despite dreaming about stable relations, have to adapt to the violent street reality. This is a particular example of a general situation, which is characterized by distorted understanding of mainstream “good” and “bad”.

Talking about interpersonal relations and passing values through generations, Anderson gives the notion of the “old heads”. He defines an “old head” as a man whose values include hard work, family life, and the church. His role within the community is to teach and socialize young men in different fields, such as work, family, and social life. “Old heads” help the youth to solve difficult situations, get an education and find a job, using their relations and life experience. Their role in the community can be compared to the role of a father within a family. However, author remarks that this model has been becoming rare in the society. Instead, the “old heads” have ceded their territory to the “young boys”, who have opposite values and models of behavior based on the Code.

Anderson’s theory has awakened strong interest of criminology researchers. They have made attempts to verify the Street Code theory’s assumptions by conducting surveys within the inner-city community.

The research showed the existence of “decent and street” differentiation and of the Street Code, as well as correlation between the rate of adopting the Code rules and intensity of displaying violence. Besides, a statement about partial adaptation of street models and values by decent kids was also verified.

In his work, Andersen has managed to describe the pathway to the violent behavior. Anderson’s observation, deep and persuasive, is valuable in terms of drawing attention to the problem of youth violence and juvenile crime. Not flowing into moral relativism, author nevertheless refrains from criticism or moral judgment, which, no doubt, is a big advantage of this work. Anderson has shown that violence, aggression, and other deviant actions are based not on breaking rules, but on conforming to a specific, alternative code of behavior.

The work is fascinating and eye-opening. The author provides quotes and examples from the everyday life, not distorting the facts, which makes his analysis reliable and persuasive.

Anderson’s theory formed on the border of psychology, sociology and culture studies provides valuable knowledge to criminology. However, it is recommended to a wide audience, as it helps to understand diversity in the multinational democratic society. If one group within the society has problems, then it is a problem of the whole society. The book touches on the issue of the nature of violence and can throw light on the essence of violence in any community.

Bibliography

Anderson, Elijah. Code of the Street: Decency, Violency, and the Moral Life of the Inner City. Reprinted ed. New York: Norton, 2000. Print.