The Code of the Street and African-American Adolescent Violence

Dr. Elijah Anderson

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ), a research and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice, has issued a report reaffirming the “Code of the Street” theory of urban violence developed by Yale professor Dr. Elijah Anderson.

The “code of the street” theory involves an unending cycle of gaining and losing respect and reputation. Anderson theorized that economic disadvantage, separation from mainstream society, and racial discrimination encountered by some African-American adolescents may lead to anti-social attitudes and to violent behavior.

In his “Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City”, Anderson argues that violent interpersonal transactions among black inner city youths are governed by a set of implicit rules and conventions.

The Justice Department validation of Anderson’s theory means that the Code of the Street thesis now stands to influence how policy makers and criminal courts evaluate inner city violence, that is to consider this theory in future studies within African-American households, neighborhoods and communities.

In validating Anderson’s theory, the Justice Department Researchers looked for developmental relationships between neighborhood and family characteristics, reported experiences with racial discrimination, expressed street code values and self-reported violent behavior in young people. Their results generally support Anderson’s original observations: the stress of living in a poor and violent environment can cause young people to adopt the code of the street as a lifestyle guide.

Anderson is the William K. Lanman, Jr. Professor of Sociology at Yale, and an influential and widely published ethnographer and expert on urban inequality.

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