Code of the Steet

      Theories of Crime and "Code of the Street"

     
         In "The Code of the Street," Elijah Anderson reflects the negative effects in the poor inner-city black community by describing the life and the problems between "the decent" and "the streets." The main reasons causing people emerge in deviant behavior and crime are discrimination and inequalities. When individuals realize that they are treated unfairly, they tend to compete for their interests and protect themselves. In "The Code of the Street", I can see that Conflict theory is the most prominent among sociological theoretical explanations. However, I think control theory explains crime the best. Crimes are committed by individuals because of their "manhood" and desires.

      In the poor inner-city community, residents violate the laws because of the inequalities of the judicial system. "The code of the streets is actually a cultural adaptation to a profound lack of faith in the police and the judicial system" because the whites are dominant in the wider society (Anderson 172). The police and the judicial system only help the white or rich people. When the inner-city black residents call for help, they do not respond them. According to the conflict theory, it argues that laws are used to maintain the privileged positions of the powerful. Under this unequal capitalist system, law is not in favor of the less powerful members in the society, like the poor inner-city black residents. Therefore, the inner-city residents may result in having violent and aggressive behaviors in order to protect themselves. "The street code emerges where the influence of the police ends and personal responsibility for one’s safety is felt to begin," (Anderson 172). Therefore, the inner-city residents no longer believe in the police and desire to compete for their interests.


       In contrast, functionalist theories cannot be the most prominent sociological theoretical explanation in the article. Functionalist theories see crime is resulted from structural tensions in society. The poor residents in the inner-city community will commit crime because they lack of government’s care and endure high pressure. The poor do not only have financial limitation, but also a lack of jobs. Tensions might be built on them and "what little they have may easily be misused." (Anderson 174) When they cannot get the way out, some of them tend to self-destruction and emerge in deviant behavior. However, rich residents can commit crime and emerge in deviant behavior too. They may commit crime because of high pressure from their job, which is also a kind of structural tensions. The rich residents can also be drug dealers or involve in complicated love relationships. Therefore, crimes can be committed by both the poor and the rich people based on functionalist theories.

       Labeling theory and interactionist theory can neither explain the crime nor deviant behavior in "The Code of the Street." According to labeling theory, individual is labeled as "decent" or "street" by sorting his/her behaviors and values towards life. Street families often believe in their own rules and show "a lack of consideration" for the others, (Anderson 173). Street parents may beat their children in order to control them. Their children are socialized to "[be] tough and [show] nerve," (Anderson 176) When children push and shove each other in their plays, they may learn that the victor should be the toughest. "These experiences reinforce the lessons [they] learned at home: might make right and toughness is a virtue while humility is not." (Anderson 176) However, with the support of interactionist theory, criminal behavior is also learned within peers. Once they are labeled as decent or street, their identities can be changed through agents of socialization. Therefore, the decent youth can learn how to commit crime through their peers, media, or society. The street youth can learn how to be polite and respect the authority through schools or families. Because interactionist theory argues that criminal behavior can be learned within peers even though they are labeled, labeling theory cannot explain the causes of the crimes in the inner-city community prominently.

       Control Theory suggests crime will be committed because individual is controlled by the "manhood" and desires. The street-oriented youth wants "to get respect [and] to be recognized as capable of setting or maintaining a certain standard," ( Anderson 180). "[They]…has made the concept of manhood a part of his very identity; he has difficulty manipulating it—it often controls him," (Anderson 180). For example, girls will retaliate and "defend for her against the slander," ( Anderson 181), and boys will retaliate when their possessions or honors was taken by someone (179). Therefore a person sees an opportunity and is motivated to act according to control theory. The government should then strengthen the power of laws and the judicial system in order to control them. However, in the code of the street, there is "decent" in the inner-city residents even though the police and the judicial system do not take care of them. It proves that inner-city residents can control themselves even though there is no law to control them. As a result, control theory cannot be the most prominent explanation in the article.

       Though control theory is not prominent in "The Code of the Street," I think it is the best to explain crime. Some believe that human commit crime because of the environmental factors, such as lacking of job, treating by inequalities, withstanding under high pressure. However, crime is ultimately caused by the desires of individual because humans are inborn with selfish. "Human are fundamentally selfish beings who make calculated decisions about whether or not to engage in criminal activity by weighing the potential benefits and risks of doing so" (Giddens, Dunerier, Appelabaum, and Carr 162). When they see an opportunity, they must be motivated to act and crime is thus caused. If individuals do not desire to win or compete for their interest, they will not be affected by the environmental factors. To conclude, I think control theory explains crime the best while conflict theory is prominent in "The Code of the Street" because crime in the inner-city society is mainly caused by inequalities.






Reflection


In this topic, I learned more about the definition of the 4 sociological theoretical theories: conflict theory, funtionalist theories, control theory, and interactionaist theories. I tried to apply these theories into the situation described in “The Code of the Street”. I understand that everyone commits crimes because of many factors, especially one’s desire and self-fish mind, through reading the concept of theories and the article.

I could give a nice introduction for my essay. However, I could not explain my points clearly. Some of them are logic off. I should explain more. Besides, the proofread problems have not improved yet even though I read the sentences aloud. I should write and read more English in order to improve the sentence flow.