Critical Review on 'Code of The Street' by Elijah Anderson

This critical review focuses on the ‘Code of the Street’ (COTS) written by written by Elijah Anderson an American Sociologist. The key themes found within the book will be critically reviewed on its engagement and assessment in the form of violence. Anderson is one of the nation’s leading urban ethnographers and cultural theorists. An Ethnographic research study is often a lengthy study used to produce qualitative research. The researcher completely immerses themselves in the lives, cultures, customs and habits within a particular situation of study for the ethnographic study. The research was conducted a four year field research in inner-city ghetto areas and some well of areas in Philadelphia, USA.COTS is a follow-up ethnographic work for Elijah Andersons Previous book: ‘Streetwise: Race, Class and Change in an Urban Community’ (1990). This book was based on two urban communities- one black and impoverished, the other racially mixed and middle to upper middle class. His focus was interpersonal violence particularly with inner city youth.

COFTS focuses on the nature of public life in the inner-city ghetto, specifically public organisation. Anderson examines the importance of recognition and respecting ‘a code’ that citizens adopt when living within their neighbourhood. To be ‘street wise’ is a code of civility and code of conduct that is used for the overall behaviour and daily communications within their communities. He examines what various cities among different countries experience to current from many socio-economic backgrounds. The author shows the social downfalls that large communities face such as poverty, teen pregnancy, drugs and violence and economic downfalls while searching for levels of ‘respect’ through the universal understanding of ‘Code of the street’, also known as the ‘rules of the land’. Anderson (1999) segregates the ‘decent’ and ‘street’ from mainly distressed/stressed and violent neighbourhoods for the purpose to survive. He also explores how different social economics statuses conduct various forms of violence.

Anderson (1999) highlights violence to occur depending on the environment and the difference is explained in the context from those from the ‘decent’ and the ‘street’. The author described the ‘decent’ families to raise their children to be goal orientated with the aim to “build a good life” as well as to “make do with what you have” and encouraged them to pursue the roots of education (Anderson, 1999:38). The ‘decent’, particularly men from the inner-city environment find it easier to ‘code switch’ as their middle- class values enable them survive within the inner-ghetto area. For example, a decent student will hide his books under his jacket while walking to appear ‘street’ as this is not respected on the ‘street’. The ‘decent’ often fear the COTS mean while the ‘street families’ (SF) are likely to invest their values into the code. ‘SF’ often lacks sense of value towards family and community and the consideration for other people because of this. Therefore it may increase the likelihood of the children to adopt the same values. Anderson describes the ‘street’ to have ‘a fundamental lack of social polish and commitment to norms of civility’, often referred as ‘ignorance’ (Anderson, 1999: 50). This means that those from the ‘street’ only understand to resort to violence even in the cases of small disagreements.

The American Sociological Association (ASA) highlighted the issue that the “individual and group perceptions of violence and its seriousness are meditated by social change and by cultural and social norms about what constitutes unacceptable behaviour” (Levine & Rosich 1996: 3). Wolfgang and Ferracuti (1982) drew observations of homicide patterns in Philadelphia, from the ‘Residence of Juvenile offenders in Chicago study (Shaw and McKay, 1969) concluded that some areas saw violence as more acceptable than others. The combined complexities of defining ‘violence, the author predominantly related violence to aggressive behaviours in relation to the ‘ignorance’ of the ‘street’ families.

Albert Banduras (1977) Social Learning theory connects with Anderson’s point of violence to occur depending on the environment. The theory derived from the conclusions of the ‘Bobo doll’ experiment (Bandora et al., 1961) , the study of aggression through limitation of aggressive model. The conclusion that the interactions we have with others aid in the modelling of ones attitudes during the interaction with family, friends, teachers and co-workers (Ferguson C.J., 2010). The relationship between the ability ‘to code-switch’ and the different set of values between the ‘street’ and ‘decent’ shows the environment can either support or oppose violent behaviour. Alternatively, a study examines the influence of genetics and evolution on the acts of extreme and criminal violence (Ferguson & Beaver, 2009) concluded that research explains the link with genetic polymorphism to be connected with the genetic risk found in the individual and the conditions of the environment may trigger to increase extreme violence. The author primarily focuses COTS and the occurrence of violence in relationship to the environment however he fails to address the biological theories that can also cause violence.

Anderson speaks about the different gender roles in relation to violence and the COTS within the inner-city ghetto area. He identified the’ deindustrialisation’ in Philadelphia caused devastating effects in relation to employment within this area. This problem lead to issues such as teenage pregnancy, welfare dependency and acted as the gateway to the underground economy. Crimes such as prostitution, drug dealing and welfare scams were used to gain money by both men and women. For example, mothers on welfares were intimately connected with the drug trade, acting as ‘support personnel’. This is done by allowing their boyfriends or family male relatives to use their homes as ‘crack homes’ or ‘drug depots’ in exchange for money or favours (Anderson, 1999:111). ‘The campaign for respect’ (chapter 4) highlights that a person can become ‘violent or aggressive’ to gain ‘respect’ in the inner-city ghetto area to prove ones ‘manhood’. COTS highlights that if one is not a “real man”, one is diminished as a person (Anderson, 1999).

Masculine behaviours such as being active, dominant, strong and intellectual are described to be associated to the male gender and biological sex. The limitations for the inner-city youths to achieve have been blocked and their ‘survival’ instincts lead them to ‘seek alternate avenues to play out theirs masculine roles in their communities’ (Newburn, 1995). This supports the authors reasoning for why young men gravitate towards the ‘underground economy’ to live up to their masculine roles to ‘survive’. Contrastingly, the feminine characteristics such as being emotional, caring, weak and subservient are associated to the female gender and biological sex. Anderson (1999) focuses on gender roles within the inner-ghetto under the COTS but he mainly focuses on the male’s experience of inner-city violence. Another ethnographic study, ‘Working ‘the Code’: On Girls, Gender, and Inner-City Violence’ (Jones, 2008) demonstrates that young girls and women from the inner-city face violence just as much as young boys and men. The study results concluded similarly to Anderson (1999) men take a certain level of seriousness and the cause heightens anxiety among young people predominantly due to the emphasis of ‘manhood’ on the street. The alternative findings showed resort to potentially life-threatening extents to prove their ‘manhood’. Whereas young teenaged girls interviewed in this study typically used violence in means to end disputes rather than using violence to define the characteristics of being a women.

The ‘chivalry’ theory is the society’s belief to see women as ‘nurturing mothers’ therefore, when a women violates against their feminine characteristics, i.e. being aggressive or violent. Women who are violent are viewed as ‘potentially evil’ therefore the evil women theory reasserts the view that women deserve protection. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ,2015) shows a 6% rise in female convictions along with the increase for TV licence invasion and MoJ (2017), showed on 27/01/2017 there were ‘3946 women and 81,240 in prison”. The remaining 77,292 in prison were male justifies why Anderson (1999) focused on the male gender in relation to violence however the statistics also support Jones (2008) that women as well get involved in violent disputes.

Robert Merton’s (1938) strain theory focuses the defined goals of a given society and how the society responds to the responds to the socially accepted goals. Merton (1938) believed that those who abided by the rules of a given society to be ‘conformists’ and those who didn’t as the ‘innovators’- the criminals (Ferguson C.J., 2010). The low unemployment rate in the inner-city ‘street’ area in Philadelphia lead citizens within the society to resorted to the underground market and committed crimes such as prostitution, drug dealing and welfare scams for money. Anderson fails to address the other motivations of violence such as serial killers with the motive for sexual pleasure by torturing victims. Similarly, Merton’s (1938) theory has been criticised for not providing the clear explanation for violence as violence is not always defined by the goals of a society.

COTS highlights that black people are discriminated for law abiding jobs therefore this causes them to resort to illegal activity such as drug dealing to ‘survive’. Anderson (1999) highlighted the study of the employers Hiring Strategies, racial bias of inner-city workers conducted in Chicago (Kirschenman et al, 1991). They found that many of the employers much preferred white women and immigrants to black people (Anderson, 1999: 113).Mainstream media glamorise drug dealing and violent behaviour through a combination of music rap videos and movies and the author believed this encourages young people from this background to participate in the ‘lucrative’ trade. (Anderson,1999:112). ‘Code of the drugs’ and the ‘ COTS’ adopt similar values therefore the likelihood for violence increases as drug dealing mainly occurs within inner-city ghetto areas. E.g. business disputes are usually dealt with on the spot and emotions of anger can easily lead to a person being shot with no remorse. The trade is easily accessible element of the illegal market and has become the ‘norm’ for inner-city areas (Anderson, 1999; 111).

Descending back to the days of slavery, the American society have symbolised young black males for explosive violence and sexual aggression (Baldwin 1963; Fazier 1949). The young black males have become victims of poverty, deprivation and the denied opportunities cause them to gravitate towards the illegal ‘underground’ economy where drug dealing and violence takes place (Gibbs J et al., 1995). Results of the Chicago case study (Kirschenman et al, 1991) highlighted by Anderson (1999) of the bias and discrimination for employment against the Black ethnic group. Labelling relates to the self-identity and the behaviour may be determined by the terms used to classify a specific group. Edwin Lemart (1960) made the distinction between ‘primary deviation’ (PD) and ‘secondary deviation’ (SD). The ‘PD’ is the response to the labels of young black men as ‘explosively violent’ and ‘sexually aggressive’ and the ‘SD’ is those who have to deal the means caused by the PD (Jones, 2000). This is the discrimination against the black ethnic group to obtain a legally abiding job. If there was no such label for the black ethnic group, this problem may have not occurred.

Alternatively, the media is a powerful tool that aids in the making and shaping the views of a society. A secondary based study examined the Medias effect on the fear of crime (Heath & Gilbert; 1996). The results of the study concluded that the media over exaggerate violent crime within a given society but not all societies world-wide (Tyler & Crook; 1984). Also complexities such as how a person perceives forms of violence through a combination of television programmes, VCR and interactive games that react violence also generates a fear of crime (Heath & Gilbert; 1996). Both complexities of the media as well as humans generate the fear for crime. COTS highlights that the feelings of discrimination against black people for employment to gravitate towards the violent drug trade as they feel like they have no other choice to succeed. The media uses the historic stigmatisation of black people to be ‘violent’ and ‘aggressive’ within the current media could cause the employers to fear hiring black people. This causes a criminogenic affect and the feelings of discrimination among the black ethnic leads them to portray the Medias representation of violence by participating in the underground economy.

To conclude, a range of key themes stated in the critical review demonstrates the key strengths and weaknesses in the assessments in relation to violence under Andersons COTS (1999). Further recommendations of the study would be that Anderson (1999) uses they key themes stated within this review to analyse the reason for violence under the COTS. However the author also should have focused on ways of how the COTS could break the forms of violence to occur.

Bibliography

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