Violent Attitudes and Antisocial Behavior: Examining the Code of the Street’s Generalizability among a College Sample

ABSTRACT

Drawing on Elijah Anderson’s (1999) Code of the Street thesis, this study assesses the generalizability of street code attitudes. Using a sample of college students from a large Midwest university, the current study contributes to the literature by examining: (1) the generalizability of street code attitudes; (2) the correlates of street code attitudes, including various forms of strain; and (3) the predictive power of street code attitudes on criminal and non-criminal behavior. Our results reveal that street code attitudes are generalizable to college students, strain constructs are important correlates of street code attitudes, and street code attitudes are associated with criminal behavior. However, the effect of street code attitudes on criminal behavior becomes non-significant once measures of strain are included. Further, street code attitudes do not predict non-criminal behavior.

Notes

¹ Studies also specify that college students represent a high-risk demographic for committing crime/violence as well as being victimized (see Nagin and Paternoster 1993; Schreck 1999). Hence, due the street code involving key themes such as criminality and victimization, it is also probable that college students may adopt attitudes conducive to violence.

² Stewart and Simons (2006) incorporated a summary scale of strain that consisted of 15 items. However, the authors only provided a brief example of the items that were included in their scale (e.g., failing a class, breaking up with boyfriend/girlfriend) and did not provide a full list of items used to measure strain. Further, the authors did not individually examine the different “types” of strain identified by Agnew, which may be important when understanding what stressful life events lead an individual to endorsing street code attitudes of violence. Thus, a more stringent examination would be to examine the various forms of general strain theory individually as opposed to examining the construct collectively.

³ Although not directly testing street code attitudes, previous efforts also illustrate that violent attitudes and beliefs are salient in predicting bar fights, aggressive behavior, retaliatory violence, disputatiousness, and assault (Bernburg and Thorlindsson 2005; Copes, Hochstetler, and Forsyth 2013; Jacobs 2004; Luckenbill and Doyle 1989; Markowitz and Felson 1998).

⁴ Information pertaining to the percentage of majors versus non-majors in the large introductory courses was obtained from the university.

⁵ Our final sample consisted of 43.5% male, 80.4% white, 19.6% minority (8.6% African American, 7.4% Hispanic, and 3.6% other race), and a mean age of 19.7 years old. In comparison, the university reports that the student body is 41.5% male, 80.5% white, and 19.5% minority (7.7% African American, 4.3% Hispanic, 5.2% other race, and 2.3% unknown). The university does not report a mean age of the student population, but illustrates that 34.6% of the students are between 17 and 19 years old, 62% are between 20 and 25 years old, and 3.4% are above the age of 25.

⁶ Due to the conceptual and empirical overlap between the family problems (presentation of noxious stimuli) and break up (removal of positively valued stimuli) constructs, we ran a factor analysis. Consistent to Mazerolle and Piquero (1998), the results of our factor analysis (not shown in tabular format) indicate two distinct factors, suggesting that measures from both constructs to be unique and load on separate, identifiable factors.

⁷ Given the number of covariates included in the models presented, we first assessed the degree of collinearity present. Results of these analyses (not presented) indicate that multicollinearity is not an issue, as none of the obtained variance inflation factors exceeded the common cutoff of 10.0 (O’Brien 2007).

⁸ In a separate analysis (not shown in tabular format), we examined whether street code attitudes mediated the effects of strain on criminal offending, but results did not provide any evidence in favor of mediation.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jonathan Intravia

JONATHAN INTRAVIA is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Ball State University. He received his Ph.D. from the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University. His research interests include neighborhoods and crime, youth violence, police–citizen relations, and contextual effects.

Kevin T. Wolff

KEVIN T. WOLFF is an Assistant Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. He is also the Chief Methodologist at the Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay. He earned his Ph.D. from the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University. His research interests include the spatial patterning of crime, juvenile justice, criminological theory, and quantitative methods.

Benjamin R. Gibbs

BENJAMIN R. GIBBS is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Ball State University. His research interests primarily focus on sex offenders and community-based corrections, including drug courts and parole performance.

Alex R. Piquero

ALEX R. PIQUERO is Ashbel Smith Professor of Criminology and Associate Dean for Graduate Programs in the School of Economic, Political, and Policy Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas, Adjunct Professor Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice, and Governance, Griffith University, Faculty Affiliate, Center for Violence and Injury Prevention George Warren Brown School of Social Work Washington University in St. Louis, and was Co-Editor of the Journal of Quantitative Criminology from 2008 to 2013. He has received several research, teaching, and mentoring awards and is Fellow of both the American Society of Criminology (2011) and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (2011). In 2014, he received The University of Texas Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award.