The inclination to violence stems from several circumstances of life among the poor the stigma of

Anderson notes that two groups coexist simultaneously in the inner-cities which he labels as the “decent” and the “streets.” Although both groups suffer economic difficulties, they differ in values mainly instilled through parenting and the home environment. The decent group seeks to adopt mainstream middle-class values, such as a love,

When discussing how exposure to community policing can affect low economic neighborhoods, one must ask what is community policing? Miller, Hess, and Orthmann (2014) stated, it is a philosophy or orientation that emphasizes working proactively with citizens to reduce fear, solve crime-related problems, and prevent crime. Community policing can be a positive change in the community and for the law enforcement personnel that serves the community. An important concept to always remember is that the police are the community, and the community are the police (Miller et al., 2014). To successfully integrate this into police departments, we must examine several factors that have made police departments what they are today, what are ways to implement this new form of policing without resistance from law enforcement and citizens, and how community policing can affect the community and the work of law enforcement in the long run.

However, as Billy Lamar Brooks Sr. explained in “The Case for Reparations,” if “you got a nice house, you live a nice neighborhood, then you are less prone to violence, because your space is not deprived.” But if “you grow up in a place like this, housing sucks. When they tore down the projects here, they left the high-rises and came to the neighborhood with that gang mentality. You don’t have nothing, so you going to take something, even if it’s not real. You don’t have no street, but in your mind it’s yours” (Coates). By Brooks’ standards, people turn to gang violence because they have no space and want something that defines them as a person. Once again, the negative assumptions associated with Blacks today, such as that all Blacks are criminals, derive from the segregation in the past. While some African Americans are criminals, they often are such because they were forced to live in segregated communities with fewer opportunities. To reduce crime, the government must open more programs that provide impoverished communities with “something that defines

The greatest problem that the society faces in the inner city black community is the interpersonal violence and aggression created by the troubled youth in their society. By simply living in this kind of violent, innocent people are affected by crimes such as burglaries, carnapping and drug related incident and shootings.

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.

This neighborhood factor drives children to seek companionship amongst others on the already violent streets and causes them to follow suit. The final factor that may result in violence stems from the individual. For instance, children raised in a bleak and violent environment may develop low self-worth and feel little power over their future. Unable to break the cycle, they become a direct reflection of what they experience in their community and contribute to the ongoing violence.

In every city there are neighborhoods that struggle with the issue of violence, crime and aggression. These neighborhoods have also taken on the names of slums and ghettos. The same areas where children are faced with growing up too fast because of the violence, crime and drug trafficking that has taken over these communities. Not only do these children and young adult face with these issues, they are also faced with the reality that in these disorganized neighborhoods, there is a breakdown of the traditional family therefore they must learn and master the code of conduct and or the rules of the streets in order to survive. Not to mention learning the demands of socially regarding displaying appropriate behavior when they are outside of the disorganized community.

In his essay, “Code of the Streets”, Anderson defines the code of the streets as “[amounting] to a set of informal rules interpersonal public behavior, including violence” (Anderson) within lower income and poor communities especially African-American neighborhoods within the inner-city. Anderson proves that the income gap leading to lacking upward mobility and unemployment with the lack of the government or law enforcement’s presence within these communities by saying an “inclination of violence springs from the circumstances of life among the ghetto poor— the lack of jobs that pay a living wage, stigma of race, the fallout from rampant drug use and drug trafficking, and the resulting national alienation, slandering from the media, and lack of hope for the future”. Lack of jobs due to the higher class’ conservation of low income and inequality which equates to lack of higher education which in today’s job market is crucial. The stigma of race from the media keeps the national and federal attention away from these communities thus perpetuating the code of the streets and overall lower class crime. The government and corporations prolonging of the income gap creates in the lower class the “Code of the Streets” which causes more crime to use as a scapegoat to distract America from the income gap and tax inequality. They do this by not giving these communities attention they need and taking their jobs away to render them uneducated and poor thus leading them to lives of

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

Life in the Inner-City In the novel “Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City” written by Elijah Anderson, Elijah discusses how socioeconomic problems affect the choices that youths in the inner-city make. Elijah asserts in order not to be harmed, individuals need to understand the code in these areas. An important key point to remember from this novel is that violence happens because of the social disorganization and socioeconomic issues that surround these cities. Issues like poverty impact how people live their lives.

When comparing the gunshot crime rates of all of 13 off campus apartment complexes at East Carolina University, there is a common correlation between the distances they are off campus, to the rate of gunshots reported for most complexes. The farther a complex is located off campus, the higher the gunshot crime rate is, in most cases. This information comes from the Greenville Police Department’s database of reported police calls for service of these apartments and their crime coverage over the last four years.

For the past few weeks in this class, we have discussed the strategies of navigating poorer urban neighborhoods and the scholarship that has been done on the populations in those communities. We have discussed gang formation, policing, gendered interactions with gang life and the code of the street. For this paper, I plan to synthesize all of these topics into a cohesive analysis of the importance of these works, especially as it pertains to racial and ethnic tensions. I have selected two pieces to go alongside Streetwise by Elijah Anderson: “Disorderly community partners and broken windows policing” by Ana Muniz and “Dreams Deferred: The Patterns of Punishment in Oakland” by Victor Rios. While the focus will be on these three readings from this class, I will make casual reference to the other readings as they become relevant.

It is common for parents and their children to have disagreements and to have arguments but sometimes these disagreements can turn into abuse. Children usually use violence to try to “control or bully them” (Parenting and Child Health, n.d.) This violence usually occurs when the child “frightens, threatens or physically hurts them. It can involve using abusive language, pushing, shoving, kicking, throwing things, or threatening with knives or other weapons” ((Parenting and Child Heathen’s.) Children may abuse their parents due to the normalization of that parent getting abused by the other parent within their household. The child may use the parent that abusing the other parent as a model for the way they should act towards their parent as well and justify their actions simply as something that they observed in their household. The violence that children commit against their parents affects that subsystem because it leaves it broken. There is a strain within the parent and child relationship that forms a direct result of constant conflict and abuse between the child and parent. Sometimes, in child-child relationships, an older sibling may become “more aggressive” with their younger sibling because of the abuse that they have witnessed and been exposed to. (Fantuzzo, Mohr, 1999) The children can become socialized by the parents to believe that

Many citizens have become annoyed with the crime in their neighborhoods. They have organized block watches, citizen patrols, along with neighborhood cleanups, and started harassing slumlords that allow drug dealers to use their properties. (Brown Art. 122). Among many of the crime fighting tools, the involvement of

Statistics indicate many aggressors at some point or another have witnessed acts of violence. During childhood, these observed behaviors can have a major impact and influence on adolescent and adult attitudes, perception of self and others. "Children become more susceptible and prone to negative and dangerous behaviors which can