Sages of the street: violence management and neighborhood conflict among crime- and violence-exposed young males in southwest Houston

ABSTRACT

This study presents efforts to mitigate the likelihood of violent victimization among a network of young males with varying degrees of criminal involvement and previous victimization. Already inhabiting an environment in which poverty, institutional segregation, drugs, guns, and gangs are prevalent, the young males’ risk of victimization is heightened by their volatile relationships, presence in crime-prone places and connection to illegal activities. Findings from ethnographic observations of violence management practices show that the young males’ interactions and whereabouts in the neighborhood are guided by knowledge of their neighborhood’s physical and administrative boundaries, built environment, and markers of place – all of which are used to demarcate places of belonging and relative safety. Broadening the conception of neighborhood conflict and violence management beyond their relation to identity performance and defended territory, this study articulates violence management as a contextually-informed skill set.

KEYWORDS:

• Violence management
• neighborhood conflict
• street efficacy
• Houston

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Ethics approval for this project was granted by the Institutional Review Board of Louisiana State University.

2 The ages listed for the participants are those when I met them in late-2015 or early-2016.

3 Victor and Roderick did not consent to being recorded in interviews. Devante and Dilson initially did, but Devante was reluctant to discuss several topics with the recording device on while Dilson fixed his eyes on the device and appeared nervous, so I decided to forego recording their interviews.

4 While there are local, national, and transnational gangs throughout southwest Houston, these gangs are divided into sets, or individual chapters, that operate independently, rarely coordinate with each other, and may even feud. Some sets are actively involved in drug and human trafficking, prostitution, and extortion, but not all members contribute equally (or at all) to these activities; those that do may do so with non-members or even members of other gangs. My experiences working with young people in southwest Houston, combined with my contacts in local schools and non-profits, generally support the findings of Sanchez-Jankowski (1991) and Pyrooz (2014) that gang entry and participation are age-differentiated, with young adolescents seeking group identity, protection, and material resources and older adolescents and adults primarily seeking income-generating opportunities.

5 All of the young males attended public schools. Public schools serving Brays Oaks are almost exclusively Hispanic and Black with over 90% of students living in low-income households – a demographic composition not reflective of the neighborhood at large due to wealthier students attending private or public magnet schools.