1. Introduction
Elijah Anderson’s [
1,
2]
Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City is among the most influential and acclaimed theoretical developments in criminology in recent decades, one that has promulgated to the broader culture. Anderson’s work tackles one of the most controversial empirical issues in American society, namely the high rate of interpersonal violence, homicide perpetration, and homicide victimization among inner city African American males. Multiple data sources indicate that homicide offending and victimization rates among African American males are exponentially higher than others in the U.S. population [
3,
4,
5,
6,
7]. Since its publication, a plethora of investigators reported significant associations between the code of the street and diverse specifications of antisocial behavior among a variety of data sources, including the Mobile Youth Survey [
8], National Youth Survey [
9], Family and Community Health Study [
10,
11], Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT) program [
12], and Seattle Neighborhoods and Crime Survey [
13] within the United States in addition to data from the Netherlands [
14] and United Kingdom [
15,
16]. Despite the diversity of these studies, the overall conclusion is clear: the more an individual advocates the code of the street, the greater his or her involvement in externalizing, antisocial, and violent behaviors.
Despite the popularity of Anderson’s thesis differentiating antisocial (“street”) and prosocial (“decent”) adaptations about cultural and structural isolation, it is also plausible that the code of the street is conflated with psychological factors that also relate to antisocial responses. As suggested by prior researchers [
17,
18,
19,
20,
21], the code of the street is conceptually congruent with a variety of constructs including hostile attribution bias, antisocial personality disorder, temperamental deficits, and psychopathy. Unfortunately, this important conceptual point is largely overlooked in the criminological literature.
2. Theoretical Framework
Anderson’s formulations about inner city oppositional culture build on the work of Thrasher [
22,
23], who notes that origins of crimes are based on two generalizations; the behavior problems of childhood and adolescence, and the malfunction of social institutions in the crime producing areas. Concentrations of these and other damaging structural factors are found to weaken social control while socially isolating residents within their communities. The establishment of neighborhood cohesion and shared legitimate values is limited, resulting in the development of an oppositional culture that further perpetuates violent behavior [
24,
25].
Anderson’s [
1] ethnographic research on structurally disorganized and segregated Philadelphia neighborhoods expands upon this by demonstrating how social isolation can suppress mainstream values and isolate residents from mainstream society. He argues that due to these structural changes in neighborhoods resulting in decreased employment opportunities and increased disadvantage, “the trust and perceptions of decency that once prevailed in the community are increasingly absent” (p. 145), and in their place a “code of the streets” has developed, which emphasizes toughness, risk-taking, and the use of violence to achieve status. As Anderson points out “violent solutions to problems in disadvantaged neighborhoods are an essential part of the local subculture, a means of defending one’s honor and winning respect from residents. These cultural codes appropriate aggressive responses toward individuals who show disrespect, a rationale allowing those who are inclined to aggression to precipitate violent encounters in an approved way” [
1], (p. 33). Thus, the code of the street is a set of behavioral and attitudinal norms that influence and inform interactions among individuals in structurally disadvantaged neighborhoods [
26].
Anderson suggests that the residents of socioeconomically disadvantaged inner city communities live by two basic cultural orientations: “decent” and “street”. His discussion centers on the role of the street culture in exacerbating levels of violence where individuals gain or lose respect based on their response to challenges. Responding with violence, often regardless of the outcome, earns respect or “juice”, which is often considered critical. While most residents of even the most socioeconomically disadvantaged and violent communities are “decent” and not strongly committed to the street orientation or the code of the street, all residents are cognizant of the behavioral norms it prescribes. Residents understand that abiding by these norms may reduce their risk of victimization and increase their odds of surviving a violent encounter [
27,
28,
29]. Individuals prescribing to the street cultural orientation often campaign for respect or “juice”. This revolves around the presentation of self with the basic requirement of being able to display “a predisposition to violence, where the public bearing must send the unmistakable, if sometimes subtle, message that one is capable of violence, and possibly mayhem, when the situation requires it” [
1], (p. 72). This presentation of self includes facial expressions, direct communication, gait, and the individuals’ physical appearance. Failure to respond to these challenges violates the code of the street and thus results in a loss of status and respect, which may have dire consequences. Once one’s honor and reputation are questioned, they stand to lose respect among peers and may become victimization targets. For individuals in this milieu, respect and honor often hinge on the how they perform on the streets during such violent interpersonal encounters.
3. The Code of the Street and Psychological Factors
Despite supportive research, there is also evidence suggesting that other factors influence antisocial outcomes among impoverished youth above and beyond the code of the street. In their study of over 2000 youth selected from the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice, [
30] found significant evidence of street code beliefs among delinquents; however, these beliefs existed among youth irrespective of their rearing environment, not exclusively in urban environments. This suggests that more universal antisocial features not specific to a street code are also driving violent responses to interpersonal affronts and disputes. In a qualitative study of young, African American males who were co-victims of homicide, [
31] reported high prevalence of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms, including acute stressors (100% prevalence), intrusion/thought intrusion (46% prevalence), avoidance (46% prevalence), negative alterations in cognition and mood (65%), and alterations in arousal and reactivity/hypervigilance (68%). Although code of the street normative valuations were present in their data, their study reveals that exposure to acute levels of crime, disorder, and violence works to cultivate a psychological state where violence is often potentiated.
Less research attention focused on the interrelationship between the code of the street and cognate psychological factors that are themselves associated with antisocial behavior. In a provocative editorial, [
18] hypothesized that the code of the street simply reflects elements of the population who exhibit an array of antisocial traits. According to this perspective, “decent” and “street” residents share the same socioeconomic status and racial status, yet engage in diametrically different behaviors, the former prosocial and the latter antisocial. DeLisi speculated that a variety of constructs, such as hostile attribution bias, low self-control, psychopathic features, and negative emotionality share important variance with the street code. Baron [
32] analyzed data from 400 homeless youth in Canada to see how well the street code withstood controls for anger, self-centeredness, and nerve, which captured stress immunity in the face of potential victimization. Across multiple regression models, [
32] found that the code of the street maintained significant associations with self-reported violent offending despite these and other controls. Moreover, interaction terms for the street code and anger, self-centeredness, and nerve were also significant. Finally, [
32] reported moderation effects whereby standard deviation increases in anger, self-centeredness, and nerve were commensurately linked with greater effect sizes between the street code and violence. In other words, youth who adhere to the street code and who exhibit clinically elevated anger, self-centeredness, and nerve were most likely to be violent.
The salience of anger and self-centeredness clearly implicates self-control theory [
33]. On that point, several studies exist. [
34] analyzed national survey data and found that lower self-control predicted street code attitudes. Curiously, neither the street code nor self-control were associated with offending in multivariate models. Alternatively, [
35] found that low self-control and street code adherence predicted offending after controlling for each in the same model. McNeeley, Meldrum, and Hoskin [
36] studied the convergent validity between self-control and the street code among a student sample. They found that each dimension of the low self-control construct—impulsivity, risk-seeking, simple tasks, physical orientation, self-centeredness, and anger—was significantly associated with street code values. Additionally, two aggregate measures of self-control (the Grasmick scale and Tangney scale) were also predictive of street code values. Similarly, [
37] found that low self-control predicted street code attitudes and that the street code maintained significant associations with self-reported violence and property offending, but not drug use, despite controlling for self-control and other covariates. In sum, a variety of studies show that the code of the street is interrelated with other psychological risk factors for crime and violence.
7. Discussion
The trend in African American offending rates being as much as nine times higher than white offending rates in the same or similar environments is a significant issue that deserves and requires explanation from criminologists. A large number of studies have utilized macro-level theories to explain the sociological, cultural, and structural reasons for such discrepancies in offending patterns, yet considerably less attention has been directed toward exploring the effect of individual personality deficits about offending in such environments. Scholars have speculated [
18,
19,
20,
21] that Anderson’s code of the street was merely a sociological presentation of antisocial traits. The current study represents one such investigation as we empirically examined whether the code of the street and its association with delinquency, arrests, and violence can withstand confounds for psychological personality traits, specifically psychopath and temperament deficits, using a sample of institutionalized juvenile offenders in a long-term residential facility. Results demonstrated that the code of the street fared well, suggesting that there are in fact structural and cultural features to the code that are beyond individual personality traits. Several findings warrant discussion.
First, the consistent linkages between the code of the street and the outcome variables herein are impressive given the quality and nature of the psychopathy and temperament variables. As they instantiate the essential features of an individual with self-regulation and conduct problems, both psychopathy and temperament exist in general theories of antisocial behavior in the social sciences [
62,
63,
64,
65,
66,
67,
68]. Particularly in the case of DeLisi and Vaughn’s theory that presents an individual with core self-regulation deficits and abundant negative emotionality, it is impressive that the code of the street maintained predictive validity in the models, given that similar explanatory variance typified the psychological measures. Consistent with prior research [
32], this suggests that it is not just anger dysregulation, vengefulness, or mere temper that explains the association between street code adherence and antisocial conduct, but there are emergent sociological features to the street code beyond the contributions of psychopathy and temperament. Perhaps the code of the street is not simply a form of self-presentation, but acts as a cultural narrative actors can use to build their identity and orient their behaviors [
16]. For some, criminal offending is a choice driven by the need to maintain the street persona that is their identity.
Second, Anderson’s [
1,
2] theory is unique in that it attempted to explain violent and antisocial conduct uniquely among African Americans. Although there is evidence that code of the street values transcend race, ethnicity, and nationality [
69,
70], the current models show that in addition to the main effects, the code of the street has null associations with offending among non-African Americans but significant linkages with self-reported arrests and self-reported delinquency among African Americans. Curiously, the split race models also showed that the code of the street was not associated with self-reported violence among African Americans, despite that being a central postulate of the theory. One explanation for this unexpected finding is the violent delinquency measure does not contain homicide, which is the quintessential example of a violent interaction where lethality is used to save face or respond to disrespect. Prior researchers have referred to these lethal encounters as “cultural retaliatory homicide” [
71]. Alternatively, our operationalization of street code may capture individuals who are “code switchers” and vacillate in adherence to the street code per the situation, but may be less likely to act violently than those who fully embodied the code of the street. Even among youth, stronger and long-term adherence to the code of the street is associated with increased violent offending [
35]. Nevertheless, the code of the street was more salient in models of delinquency and arrest among African Americans than other youth, which is consistent with prior research [
72].
Third, perhaps because Anderson’s theory involves a qualitative approach, criminologists have devised a variety of measures to operationalize the code of the street and no single measure has achieved consensus in the literature. The current measure combined the angry, aggressive, aggrieved disposition with exposure to neighborhoods where deviance is tolerated and unlikely to be sanctioned by neighbors. We strongly encourage researchers to explore connections between the code of the street and other psychological constructs related to antisocial behavior. For instance, in the current data, the code of the street had small yet significant correlations with several subscales of the YPI including manipulation (r = 0.15, p < 0.02), thrill-seeking (r = 0.15, p < 0.01), impulsiveness (r = 0.14, p < 0.03), and irresponsibility (r = 0.16, p < 0.01). Although the code of the street withstood competing effects for psychopathy, it is also clear that psychopathic features partially imbue the street code.
Fourth, although the primary research purpose was theory testing, there is also practical value to our findings. Across models, it was clear that seriously delinquent youth exhibit a variety of antisocial features relating to their temperament, their personality functioning, and subcultural adaptations like the street code. Of these three antisocial features, there is frankly greater likelihood for change for the street code, since temperament and personality are moderately to highly heritable and mostly stable across life, especially among those who would meet diagnostic criteria for personality and conduct disorders (e.g., Conduct Disorder, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Intermittent Explosive Disorder). In contrast, the code of the street is reducible in multiple ways, including improving police–community relations so that street code adherents are empowered to employ lawful responses to disputes as suggested by prior researchers [
73]. Additionally, school-based crime and violence prevention programing, such as the G.R.E.A.T. program, which aims to foster prosocial conflict resolution and cooperation skills shown to reduce gang membership and violence while improving prosocial outcomes [
74,
75].
Another approach involves correctional interventions, such as Aggression Replacement Training (ART; [
76,
77]. ART treats aggression and violence as a multifaceted construct that has behavioral, affective, and moral features and the intervention involves the inculcation of prosocial responses to conflict, anger control and management, and moral reasoning. These precepts map well to the code of the street in terms of helping youth recognize the alternatives to a violent (or potentially homicidal) encounter, helping the youth in their maintenance of anger but also maintenance of excessive feelings of pride that often serve as the motivator to avenge disrespect. Although it is not a gold-standard intervention (for a recent systematic review, see, [
78], ART does have effectiveness among offender and adolescent at-risk populations [
79,
80,
81]. In summary, our operationalization and findings translate into evidence informed actionable interventions.
Findings from the present study should be interpreted in the context of several limitations. First, given the cross-sectional nature of the study, temporal ordering cannot be established, which limits the ability to draw causal inferences. Moreover, the study variables were based on youth self-reports, making responses subject to social desirability bias. For instance, some youth may be more inclined to report about favorable traits to researchers. Additionally, though the study sample was demographically comparable to national samples of juvenile offenders, the geographic context of the study sample (Eastern United States) may makes comparisons to other regions of the country difficult. Moreover, neighborhood conditions were based entirely on self-perceptions and we had no objective assessments of neighborhood characteristics to draw from.