NCJ Number
174184
Date Published
1998
Length
40 pages
Annotation
This article examines the effects on the inner-city Black community of deteriorating socioeconomic conditions.
Abstract
This essay offers an ethnographic representation of the workings of the code of the street in the context of the trying socioeconomic situation of the inner-city Black community, as jobs have become ever more scarce, public assistance has decreased, and frustration has increased. The article is based on in-depth interviews with community residents of all ages, including some who were incarcerated. The structure of the community, and the community's extreme poverty, which is in large part a result of structural economic change, interact in a way that facilitates the involvement of many maturing youths in the culture of the streets, in which violence and the way it is regulated are key elements. The article includes discussion of Black adolescent identity in the inner-city and the "dilemma of the decent kid". Endemic joblessness and persistent racism fuels the violence of inner city Black youths, and the violence will continue until society deals effectively with those socioeconomic root causes. Notes, bibliography