The Code of the Streets
...future of their children. Many of them go to church. They see the danger in the environment their children grow up in and teach them not to get in trouble. The majority of the inner cities residence are decent people. The street parents usually don’t work and the little money they have, they are likely to spend on alcohol, cigarettes and drugs. Many street oriented women are crack addicted, alcoholic or involved in complicated relationships with men who abuse them. Because of their frustration they can be aggressive with their children, yelling at them and punish them physically without an explanation in order to control them. Many street oriented women are very sporadic mothers and their children have to take care off them selves. They grow up with no supervision, surrounded by aggressive adults and use them as role models. They learn to fight at an early age. Everybody is responsible for being familiar with the code. If the victim of a mugging, for example does not know the code and so responds wrong, the person who attacks feels justified even in killing him and not feeling guilty. He may think “Too bad, but it’s his fault. He should have known better” Many feel that it is acceptable to risk dying over the principle of respect. For some prefer violent death to being dissed. The young people who have this attitude are the most dangerous, they feel like they have nothing to lose. Because their life doesn’t mean anything to them they are not afraid to take someone else’s life. They are not afraid of police, because if they go to prison they have nothing to lose. The toughening up in the prison improves their reputation on the streets. Violence and aggression is the biggest problem. It involves burglaries, carjackings, muggings, drug trafficking and drug related shooting which can cause death of innocent bystanding people. The most problematic part of the street code is the respect issue. The code provides rules, which determine how should a people look and behave – it includes clothing, jewelry, gun, and way of moving and verbal expressions. Person who behaves according these rules deserves respect from others. If somebody doesn’t wear hip jacket, or sneakers he is likely to be teased and assaulted as an unworthy...