Much scholarship has given primacy to neighborhood context and its effect on youth violence within disadvantaged communities. The structural features of these environments, including various forms of disadvantage such as extreme poverty, unemployment and family disruption, have resulted in cultural adaptations that embrace the use of violence and the construction of violent identities as a means of survival and protection especially among youth. We adhere to and contribute to this perspective by recognizing the contributions of the symbolic interaction approach that underscores the process by which these identities are constructed. Recent developments in this area have emphasized the intersecting inequalities of race, gender and class that shape individuals’ understandings of and perceptions of violence. We draw on these works and analyze in-depth interviews with 72 urban, African American adolescents to examine the process by which they perceive and negotiate violence (and thus construct violent identities) and we further consider whether these constructions of violence are gender-specific.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AndersonE. (1990). Streetwise: Race, class, and change in an urban community. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
2.
AndersonE. (1999). The code of the street: Decency, violence and the moral life of the inner city. New York, NY: W.W. Norton.
3.
BastianL. D.TaylorB. M. (1994). Young black male victims. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
BrunsonR. K.StewartE. A. (2006). Young African American women, the street code, and violence: An exploratory analysis. Journal of Crime and Justice, 29, 1-19.
6.
BursikR. J.GrasmickH. G. (1993). Neighborhoods and crime: The dimensions of effective community control. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
7.
CobbinaJ.E.LikeT.Z.MillerJ. (2010). Gang fights versus cat fights: Urban young men’s gendered narratives of violence. Deviant Behavior, 31(7), 596-624.
8.
DeCosterS.HeimerK. (2006). Crime at the intersections: Race, class, gender and violent offending. In PetersonR. D.KrivoL. J.HaganJ. (Eds.), The many colors of crime: Inequalities of race, ethnicity, and crime in America (pp. 138-156). New York: New York University Press.
9.
ElliottD. S.RankinB. (1996). The effects of neighborhood disadvantage adolescent development. Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency, 33, 389-426.
10.
HarrisonP. M.BeckA. J. (2006). Prisoners in 2005. Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin (NCJ 215092). Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs.
11.
HeimerK.MatsuedaR. L. (1994). Role-taking, role commitment, and delinquency: A theory of differential social control. American Sociological Review, 59, 365-390.
12.
HorowitzR. (1983). Honor and the American dream: Culture and identity in a Chicano community. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
13.
JonesN. (2004). It’s not where you live, it’s how you live: How young women negotiate conflict and violence in the inner city. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 595, 49-62.
14.
JonesN. (2010). Between good and ghetto. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
15.
KubrinC. E.WeitzerR. (2003). Homicide: Concentrated disadvantage and neighborhood culture. Social Problems, 50, 157-180.
16.
LauritsenJ. L. (2003). How families and communities influence youth victimization. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
17.
LauritsenJ. L.HeimerK.LynchJ. P. (2009). Trends in the gender gap in violent offending: New evidence from the National Crime Victimization Survey. Criminology, 47, 361-399.
18.
LauritsenJ. L.SchaumR. J. (2004). The social ecology of violence against women. Criminology, 42, 323-357.
19.
LauritsenJ. L.WhiteN. A. (2001). Putting violence in its place: The influence of race, ethnicity, gender and place on the risk for violence. Criminology & Public Policy, 1, 37-60.
20.
LikeT. Z.MillerJ. (2006). Race, inequality, and gender violence: A contextual examination. In PetersonR. D.KrivoL. J.HaganJ. (Eds.), The many colors of crime: Inequalities of race, ethnicity, and crime in America (pp. 157-177). New York: New York University Press.
21.
MatsuedaR. L. (1992). Reflected appraisals, parental labeling, and delinquency: Specifying a symbolic interactionist theory. American Journal of Sociology, 97, 1577-1611.
22.
McNultyT. L.BellairP. E. (2003). Explaining racial and ethnic differences in serious adolescent violent behavior. Criminology, 41, 709-748.
23.
MeadG. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society from the standpoint of a social behaviorist. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
24.
MesserschmidtJ. W. (1993). Masculinities and crime. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
25.
MillerJ. (2008). Getting played: African American girls urban inequality, and gendered violence. New York: New York University Press.
26.
MillerJ.MullinsC.W. (2006). Stuck up, telling lies, and talking too much: The gendered context of young women’s violence. In HeimerK.KruttschnittC. (eds), Gender and Crime: Patterns in Victimization and Offending (pp. 41-66). New York: NYU Press.
27.
MullinsC. W. (2006). Holding your square: Masculinities, streetlife and violence. Devon, UK: Willan Publishing.
NessC. D. (2004). Why girls fight: Female youth violence in the inner city. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 595, 32-48.
30.
OliverW. (1994). The violent social world of black men. New York, NY: Lexington Books.
31.
PuzzancheraC.AdamsB. (2011). An interpretation of the national DMC relative rate indices for juvenile justice system processing in 2008. National Disproportionate Minority Contact Databook prepared by the National Center for Juvenile Justice for the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Retrieved from www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/dmcdb/
32.
RennisonC. (2001). Violent victimization and race, 1993-98. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
33.
SampsonR. J. (1987). Urban black violence: The effect of male joblessness and family disruption. American Journal of Sociology, 93, 348-382.
34.
SampsonR. J.BartuschD. J. (1998). Legal cynicism and (subcultural?) tolerance of deviance: The neighborhood context of racial differences. Law & Society Review, 32, 777-804.
35.
SampsonR. J.BeanL. (2006). Cultural mechanisms and killing fields: A revised theory of community-level racial inequality. In PetersonR. D.KrivoL. J.HaganJ. (Eds.), The many colors of crime: Inequalities of race, ethnicity, and crime in America (pp. 8-36). New York: New York University Press.
36.
SampsonR. J.RaudenbushS. W.EarlsF. (1997). Neighborhoods and violent crime: A multilevel study of collective efficacy. Science, 277, 918-924.
37.
SampsonR. J.WilsonW. J. (1995). Toward a theory of race, crime, and urban inequality. In HaganJ.PetersonR. D. (Eds.), Crime and inequality (pp. 37-56). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
38.
ShawC. R.McKayH. D. (1942). Juvenile delinquency in urban areas. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
39.
ShawC. R.McKayH. D. (1998). Industrial restructuring and violence: The link between entry-level jobs, economic deprivation and black and white homicide. Social Forces, 77, 185-206.
40.
ShihadehE. S.OuseyG. C. (1998). Industrial restructuring and violence: The link between entry-level jobs, economic deprivation, and black and white homicide. Social forces, 77(1), 185-206.
41.
StewartE. A.SchreckC. J.SimonsR. L. (2006). I ain’t gonna let no one disrespect me: Does the code of the street reduce or increase violent victimization among African American adolescents?Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency, 43, 427-458.
42.
StraussA. L. (1987). Qualitative analysis for social scientists. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
43.
TrumanJ. L. (2011). Criminal victimization, 2010. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.
44.
WilkinsonD. L. (2003). Guns, violence, and identity among African American and Latino youth. LFB Scholarly Publishing.
45.
WilsonW. J. (1987). The truly disadvantaged: The inner city, the underclass, and public policy. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
46.
WilsonW. J. (1996). When work disappears: The world of the new urban poor. New York, NY: Random House.
