Title: Adolescent Violence: A View From the Street.
Subjects: Juvenile violence, conflict
resolution 
Author: Jeffrey Fagan, Ph.D.
Series: NIJ Research Preview
Published: January 1998
8 pages
12,000 bytes

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U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
National Institute of Justice

Jeremy Travis, Director

Research Preview

January 1998

Adolescent Violence: A View From the Street

Summary of a Presentation by Jeffrey Fagan,
Ph.D., Center for Violence Research and
Prevention

Typically, studies on violence have focused
on propensity, that is, on who is or is not
likely to become violent. But propensity
models do not account for the transactional,
contingent nature of violence or for
within-person variability over time or place.
Further, they cannot explain the occurrence
or nonoccurrence of a violent event--that
mixture of motivation, context, and
facilitation that channels arousal or other
actions into actual violence or the failure
of an event to escalate to violence despite
the presence of the dynamic factors that
would make it likely.

Researchers at Columbia University's Center
for Violence Research and Prevention are
conducting a qualitative, multistage study on
adolescent violence that draws strategically
from theories of cognitive and developmental
psychology to construct a situational
framework for understanding violent behavior.
Cosponsors of this research include the
National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), the National Science Foundation (NSF),
and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.

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Methodology

The research design includes three samples of
young men, ages 16 to 24, with histories of
involvement in violent activities and
currently (or, if incarcerated, formerly)
residing in two of New York City's highest
youth homicide rate neighborhoods--East New
York (Brooklyn) and Mott Haven (South Bronx).
The criminal justice sample includes young
men convicted on gun-related charges and
incarcerated in the Rikers Island
Correctional Facility and facilities under
the auspices of the New York State Division
for Youth Facilities. The second sample
consists of victims of violence identified in
the emergency rooms of two hospitals, one
near each of the two neighborhoods. The
community sample consists of young men who
are involved in violence but have avoided
both the criminal justice system and the
emergency room.

To date, 150 subjects, primarily from the
criminal justice and community samples, have
been interviewed and their responses
transcribed. Interviews were conducted by
"street smart" young men who are a few years
older than sample members, are from the
neighborhoods where subjects were recruited,
and are role models for avoiding serious
violence. The interview protocol sought
narrative responses to structured questions
regarding general information (respondent's
family, school, work, and problem behavior),
perceptions of social interactions in the
community (including dealings with the
police), and the details of two violent and
two near-violent events during the past 2
years in which the respondent participated as
(1) an armed perpetrator or victim, and (2)
an unarmed perpetrator or victim. Information
was requested on the social context of these
events and the strategic decisions the
subjects made that led them to engage in or
withdraw from a situation, as well as
decisions made once a violent episode had
begun. Interviews were tape recorded and
transcribed. Findings from these first 150
interviews are presented here.

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Findings

Preliminary analyses focused on three areas:
(1) the functions, contexts, and variability
of violence; (2) an assessment of the "code
of the streets," a sociocultural structure
that establishes rules, motivations, and
justifications for engaging in violence in
poor and socially isolated neighborhoods; and
(3) the role of alcohol and other drugs in
violent events. In addition, the study tried
to determine how the subjects avoided
potentially violent confrontations.

Variability and function of violence. The
study confirmed that respondents were involved
in a wide range of violent acts in diverse
social contexts. Violent events have different
motivations, meanings, and outcomes depending
on context:

o Gang conflicts, both within gangs and
between rival gangs.

o Neighborhood and ethnic conflicts, often
over "turf."

o Continuing feuds between individuals over
perceived insults or disrespect.

o Disputes over girlfriends.

o Acquisitive violence, such as extortion
and robbery.

o Preemptive or strategic violence, i.e.,
"I'm going to get him before he gets me."

o Dating violence.

o Ritualized violence, e.g., gang initiations.

The most compelling function that violence
served in the lives of respondents was to
achieve and maintain status as a "tough"
person a reputation that conferred social
power and dominance and protected the young
men against victimization. Violence was also
seen as a means to acquire the accouterments
of wealth (e.g., nice clothes, flashy cars,
or access to clubs), control or humiliate
another person, defy authority, settle
drug-related "business" disputes, attain
retribution, satisfy the need for thrills or
risktaking, and respond to challenges to
one's manhood.

Violence as a code of behavior. The study
found that identities and normative
behavioral codes were situation-specific.
Many young men alternated their demeanor
between "decent" and "street" codes of
behavior, language, and dress. Both
orientations lived side by side within the
same individuals. The street code's rules for
getting and maintaining respect through
aggressive behavior forced many "decent"
youths to situationally adopt a tough demeanor
and perhaps behave violently in order to
navigate through an otherwise hostile and
possibly dangerous environment. The reaction
of bystanders is a key factor in the outcome
of a situation. Bystanders can cool off or
heat up the response to a confrontation or
dispute. Repeated violent interactions can
motivate a person's strategic decisionmaking
to internalize a street code. The pressure of
guns often escalates the stakes of a dispute
and increases its potential lethality.

Alcohol, drugs, and violence. Alcohol and
drugs can influence social interactions in
two ways that may lead to violence. First,
alcohol can shape the dynamics, decisions,
and strategies in a violent or near-violent
episode that is, interactions in which one or
both individuals have been drinking will turn
out differently than those in which one or
both are sober. The second is that the
context in which drinking occurs exerts
independent effects on how violent or
near-violent events unfold. 

Respondents reported that intoxication
increased the likelihood that a person's
language would become provocative and
boastful turning minor disputes into violent
encounters. Alcohol exaggerated the sense of
outrage over perceived transgressions of
personal codes, resulting in violence to
exert control or exact retribution. Some
drinkers acted on bystanders' provocations to
fight more seriously; others felt invincible
and started fights that they then lost. In
addition, certain bars or bodegas were
frequent scenes of violence, regardless of
who was present or how much alcohol had been
consumed: being in the wrong place at the
wrong time resulted in injuries, including
gunshot wounds, to a number of respondents.

The effects of drugs on violence were much
less clear. Marijuana made some subjects less
prone to violence, others sought out victims
to exploit or dominate, and still others
became paranoid either avoiding human contact
or becoming hostile and prone to defensive
violence. Circumstances tended to overtake
the effects of drugs; that is, if a fight
broke out, even the most relaxed and "mellow"
individual would immediately snap out of his
stupor to defend himself.

Some respondents blamed their violent
behavior on alcohol or drugs, and others did
not. A number of young men used alcohol or
drugs after violent events as a form of
self-medication.

Avoiding violence. Even under the influence
of alcohol, some youths were able to walk
away from violence. Researchers repeatedly
heard stories of "graceful" and strategic
retreats from violence by persons able to
simultaneously pay respect to the other party
and maintain their own status. This took
verbal skills and mental agility in the midst
of a scene where both parties showed anger
and arousal cognitive abilities that not
everyone possesses. 

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Interventions for the future

The researchers concluded that classroom
instruction in conflict resolution skills is
generally ineffective when practiced in the
neutral, unemotional context of a classroom.
The findings of this study indicate that
adolescents should be taught negotiating and
conflict avoidance skills under conditions
that mimic the street that is, under
emotional states that stimulate unpredictable
behavior. Role playing can help participants
better understand the provocative and
steering behaviors of bystanders and other
third parties. Bystanders can also learn how
their behavior can increase the risks of
lethal violence for young men facing off on
the street.

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This summary is based on a presentation by
Jeffrey Fagan, Ph.D., Director for the Center
for Violence Research and Prevention at
Columbia University's School of Public
Health, to an audience of researchers and
criminal justice practitioners. His
coinvestigator is Deanna L. Wilkinson. The
seminar, Adolescent Violence: A View From the
Street, is available as a 60-minute videotape
for $19 ($24 in Canada and other countries).
Use the order form on the next page to obtain
this videotape, NCJ 163059, and any of the
others available in NIJ's Research in
Progress Seminar Series.

-------------------------------------------------------

Points of view in this document do not
necessarily reflect the official position of
the U.S. Department of Justice. 

FS 000189

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