NCJ Number
244690
Date Published
1999
Length
352 pages
Annotation
This book, Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City, examines how violence in the inner city is regulated through the informal code of the street.
Abstract
This book delineates the informal code of the street and examines how violence in the inner city is regulated by this code. In the inner city, the code of the street begins where the influence of the police ends and personal responsibility for one's safety begins, resulting in a kind of people's law or street justice. This street justice is a primitive form of social exchange where transgressions are handled through force and a reputation for vengeance. The book explores how this reality has negatively impacted the lives of young people, forcing them to grow up in communities with failed economic, educational, social, and judicial systems. The seven chapters of the book attempt to answer the following questions: How do people of the setting perceive their situation? What assumptions do they bring to their decision making? What behavioral patterns result from these actions? What are the social implications and consequences of these behaviors? Notes, bibliography, and index