An Action-Theoretic Approach to Street Code related Acts of Violence

• In Event: Cultural Conflict, Legal Cynicism, and "Street Codes"

Abstract

Prevalence of a “code of the street” can lead to violence via two different processes. At the micro level, individuals endorsing street code values might act violently if they see violence as the warranted course of action in certain situations, e.g. when reacting to perceived provocations. At the macro level, widespread street code values might induce violence as a means to negotiate respect and social status. The interplay of these two processes is studied at a situational level, trying to understand in what kinds of situations street code values promote violence. Two action-theoretic approaches, Situational Action Theory and the Model of Frame Selection, are used to derive expectations about how acts of violence are related to the interplay of individual endorsement of street code values, collective prevalence of street code values, and characteristics of the situation. The proposed interplay is tested applying multilevel modelling to factorial survey data. Subsequently, these situational processes are then linked to rates of violence at the macro level. Actor-based modelling is employed to investigate how the identified situational processes can result in different rates of violence depending on the distribution of street code values in the population.

Author

• Harald Beier, Mannheim Centre for European Social Research, University of Mannheim