Drugs,Guns,and Disadvantaged Youths

Abstract

Guided by Anderson’s theory of the code of the street, this study explored social mechanisms linking individual-level disadvantage factors with the adoption of beliefs grounded in the code of the street and with drug trafficking and gun carrying—the co-occurring behavior shaping violence among young men in urban areas. Secondary data were employed from a sample of male inmates and a sample of male high school students. Data analysis indicated that the social disadvantage factor absent father significantly predicted this co-occurring behavior in the inmate sample, whereas the social disadvantage factor history of expulsion did so in the student sample. In both samples, race and adopting beliefs about gun carrying from the code of the street were significant predictors of drug trafficking and gun carrying. The results do not suggest that such code-based beliefs’ impact on drug trafficking and gun carrying differs by race. Implications for social policy are discussed.

Keywords

individual-level disadvantage factors urban male youth code-based beliefs drug trafficking gun carrying co-occurring behavior

During the 1980s, young urban African American men’s involvement in drug-related crime burgeoned. A point was reached in some inner cities at which 33% of Black males older than 16 dealt drugs (Blumstein, 1995; Centers & Weist, 1998; Li & Feigelman, 1994; Whitehead, Peterson, & Kaljee, 1994). Research has suggested that, even recently, African Americans in disadvantaged neighborhoods are disproportionately likely to become victims of violence (Stewart & Simons, 2006). Compared to males of other races, African American males are relatively likely to die as a result of weapons violence and to carry weapons and become victims of violence (Black & Ricardo, 1994; Fingerhut, 1993; Fingerhut & Christoffel, 2002; Stanton & Galbraith, 1994). Carrying guns and trafficking drugs are so often simultaneous behaviors that they have come to constitute a phenomenon within sociological research dubbed co-occurring behavior (Black & Ricardo, 1994; Blumstein, 1995; Braga, 2003; Sheley, 1994). The violence to which young African American males fall victim is likely to be systemic violence, given that drug markets and lethal violence have a positive association (Goldstein, 1985; Ousey & Lee, 2002). Fortunately, deaths attributed to firearms have decreased immensely among children and youth since 1993; for young African American males, however, such fatalities remain staggeringly high (Fingerhut & Christoffel, 2002).

Guided by Anderson’s theory of the code of the street (1999), the present study tried to understand the gun-carrying and drug-trafficking behaviors of inner-city youths (we use drug trafficking and drug dealing interchangeably to indicate either large- or small-quantity drug sales; Stanton & Galbraith, 1994). The study had two objectives. First, it intended to delineate a mechanism linking individual-level disadvantages with participation in co-occurring behavior and establish whether the link is mediated by beliefs arising from the code of the street, specifically by code-based beliefs about gun carrying (Anderson, 1999). Second, it asked whether the impact of such code-based beliefs on youths’ armed drug-trafficking behavior varies by race. The theoretical framework posited by Anderson was developed out of his observations made in communities inhabited largely by African Americans.

The Code of the Street

The theoretical framework that Anderson (1999) called the code of the street grew out of a 4-year ethnographic study of inner-city communities, specifically, some neighborhoods of Philadelphia. The code, Anderson argued, is a set of informal rules for behavior that governs citizens of disadvantaged urban areas. These rules represent the alienation of some inner-city Blacks from the rest of American society, from the dominant White society in particular.

Adopting beliefs that are based on the code of the street is an indication of exposure to considerable social and structural disadvantages; yet, all people in socially and structurally disadvantaged communities do not adopt a code-based lifestyle. According to Anderson (1999), code-adopting individuals represent one extreme end of the alienated group who are “casualties of the social and economic system” (p. 36) because they have wholeheartedly embraced a street lifestyle. When they have children, code adopters pass on its expectations and assumptions to their sons and daughters (Brezina, Agnew, Cullen, & Wright, 2004), creating a family cycle that perpetuates code-based street behavior. The antithesis of the street-oriented family, according to Anderson, is the “decent” family, one that lives by fairly mainstream values and rears children according to moral dictates of the larger society. Anderson described such families as practicing polite and considerate behavior, unlike the behavior of street-oriented families. To survive in the neighborhoods that surround their homes, many children from decent families are forced to “code switch” (Anderson, 1999, p. 36)—that is, adopt both street values and the values of decent families.

Literature Review

As crack cocaine was introduced to the American drug market in the mid-1980s to early 1990s, demand grew both for the substance and those willing to traffic it. Economic conditions of that time saw employment opportunities disappearing from the inner city, resulting in additional strain on many families—especially, African American families—which led to the popularity of recruiting disadvantaged youths from inner-city neighborhoods to join the crack-dealing business (Braga, 2003; Moore & Tonry, 1998).

As the drug scene became more pervasive on the street, so too did gun carrying. Juveniles’ access to handguns increased (Moore & Tonry, 1998), and drug-trafficking juveniles began to carry them to protect themselves as they carried on their business (Blumstein, 1995; Braga, 2003). Eventually, disadvantaged urban youths who were not drug dealers also began carrying handguns, defensively, because their neighborhoods were the locus of the new trend (Braga, 2003). Easy availability of handguns in the United States has been strongly and increasingly associated with the selling of illegal drugs (Callahan & Rivara, 1992). Guns are perceived by young traffickers as being necessary to their business because, as they see it, the guns secure their product and profits (Black & Hausman, 2008).

Drug trafficking and gun carrying are associated with certain demographic factors: race, low socioeconomic status, and residence in urban neighborhoods (Anderson, 1999). On the street, drug trafficking is socially acceptable, viewed by peers and neighborhoods as a well-paid job and an opportunity to escape a life of poverty (Anderson, 1999; Black & Ricardo, 1994; Blumstein, 1995; Friedman, Ali, & McMurphy, 1998; Stanton & Galbraith, 1994; Whitehead et al., 1994). Young drug dealers’ own families often approve of their activities, which relatives may have modeled for younger family members (Anderson, 1999; Black & Ricardo, 1994; Li & Feigelman, 1994; Whitehead et al., 1994).

Families from which critical members are missing frequently show a lack of conventional bonding with young members, which adds to the attractiveness of drug dealing over conventional employment (Centers & Weist, 1998). Among African American children, fathers’ absence is associated with higher risk for early involvement in drug trafficking (Friedman et al., 1998; Okundaye, Cornelius, & Manning, 2001). Moreover, inner-city youth who find drug trafficking attractive often lack opportunities to learn conventional values in school, as indicated by the poor performance, high dropout rate, and high expulsion rate frequent in this population (Black & Ricardo, 1994; Centers & Weist, 1998). Research in inner-city communities has shown that poor education is associated with youth violence, use of guns, and drug dealing (Blumstein, 1995; Callahan & Rivara, 1992).

Co-occurring gun carrying and drug trafficking, as a response or adaptation to structural deficiencies in a community, is only facilitated by the typical street culture embodied in the code of the street (Anderson, 1999; Brezina et al., 2004; Kubrin, 2005). First learning the code during childhood, youths internalize it as teenagers—accepting that status, respect, and “manhood” must be vied for and earned on the streets (Anderson, 1999). The code’s appeal among young African American men reflects a human need for dignity, respect, and status; the code comprises social beliefs of the same type that the larger conventional society offers its youth and largely denies to inner-city youth (Anderson, 1999; Brezina et al., 2004; Stewart & Simons, 2006).

Anderson (1999) argued that the code of the street is the bridge that connects such denial (and the individual-level disadvantages that it engenders) to drug dealing and gun carrying by urban male youths (especially, African Americans). Once the code is adopted, the code-based beliefs provide a means of coping with a minority racial status and individual-level disadvantages such as poverty (Brezina et al., 2004; Kubrin, 2005); and once code-based beliefs are internalized, they promote participation in co-occurring behavior. Researchers have used the term code-related beliefs to indicate a range of attitudes and behaviors involving ideas of violence, victimization, status, respect, and manhood, among others (Brezina et al., 2004; Markowitz & Felson, 1998; Stewart, Schreck, & Simons, 2006; Stewart & Simons, 2006). In the current study, code-related beliefs were indicated by attitudes and behaviors about gun carrying. Although Anderson maintained that race is important in the development and actualization of code-based beliefs, several other studies found it to be less important once additional factors were taken into account (Brezina et al., 2004; Markowitz & Felson, 1998).

Few studies have evaluated Anderson’s code of the street (Stewart et al., 2006). Anderson (1999) maintained that adopting the code leads to violence, and much available research focuses on code-based violence (Brezina et al., 2004; Stewart et al., 2006; Stewart & Simons, 2006). For example, Brezina and colleagues (2004), aiming to predict youth violence, studied the influence on code-based violence of social position, perception of opportunity, history of victimization, and other variables. And Stewart and Simons (2006) explored how neighborhood context, family structure, and discrimination influenced adoption of the code of the street and risk of violent victimization.

Method

The present study intended to show that dealing drugs and carrying guns are common co-occurring behaviors among urban male youths because, as explained by principles of Anderson’s theory (1999), their lives feature social and structural disadvantage, resulting in adoption of beliefs prescribed by the code of the street. Although the code’s adoption may help this population cope with poverty, lack of opportunity, and racial injustice, the code exposes individuals to potentially dangerous illegal behaviors. Previous studies citing Anderson’s theory usually addressed violent behavior by young males in general; we know of no earlier research seeking to pinpoint race-specific effects of Anderson’s code-based beliefs on co-occurring drug-dealing and gun-carrying behavior (Brezina et al., 2004; Markowitz & Felson, 1998). Our study therefore intended to (a) explain young urban males’ participation in gun carrying and drug trafficking and (b) evaluate race’s role in the influence that code-based beliefs about gun carrying wield over co-occurring behavior.

Sample

As funded by the U.S. Department of Justice and the National Institute of Justice, the present study employed secondary survey data (housed at the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research) that were obtained from young inmates and high school students in four American states in 1991. The respondents were asked about violence committed by and against juveniles. Sheley, Wright, and Smith (1991) completed the survey study, which is titled “Firearms, Violence, and Youth in California, Illinois, Louisiana, and New Jersey.” The researchers sought to document in the four states the extent of gun violence, youth violence, and violence in schools. Survey questions were designed to assess firearm ownership, possession, and use, as well as respondents’ involvement in crime, gangs, or the drug industry and their attitudes and beliefs about guns, gangs, and drugs. The respondents’ sociodemographic data were also gathered.

Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to 835 juvenile male inmates in six correctional facilities and to 1,663 male and female students in Grades 9-12 at 10 public inner-city high schools. The inmates and students were in California, Illinois, Louisiana, and New Jersey and were surveyed January to April 1991. The questionnaires used with the two groups were not identical but did cover the same core topics.

The schools could not be selected randomly, so the 10 were chosen on the basis of their proximity to the participating correctional facilities. The schools’ enrollments ranged from 900 to 2,100; each was located in a major city (representing five cities in all). The correctional facilities were selected for three reasons: State officials in California, Illinois, Louisiana, and New Jersey made them accessible to the researchers; they were perceived as major facilities within their states’ juvenile justice systems; and they were situated in locales having above-average levels of youth violence, gang activity, and homicide. Inmate populations at the six correctional facilities ranged from 172 to 850.

Correctional facility administrators announced the inmate survey to their inmates; the questionnaire was administered in facility dormitories, some of which were small, others large. Inmates completed their questionnaires in groups of 10 to 20. A Spanish-language version of the questionnaire was available for inmates who preferred it; personal interviews were conducted with inmates who did not read well enough to complete a questionnaire. To increase the response rate, inmates were offered $5 in return for their participation.

The surveys administered in the high schools were sometimes completed by students in groups of 20 to 30 but sometimes during large assemblies of 100 to 200 or more students. A Spanish-language version of the questionnaire was available upon request. At four schools, principals authorized a $5 incentive for respondents completing the questionnaire.

In the present study, because Anderson’s theory (1999) concerns young men, only data from male students constituted the school sample, a total of 695 respondents. Augmentation of the student sample with the inmate sample was intended to increase the generalizability of the study results with reference to Anderson’s code of the street. The two types of family described by Anderson, decent and street oriented, are ideal types; actual families include real young people who endorse and act on a continuum of beliefs: decent, street oriented, and the range in between. With its two samples, our study incorporates various lifestyles and practices of youth (our targeted population) who come from families more and less like the types Anderson described.

Measures

Two sets of secondary data were analyzed: one from inmates, the other from high school students. The data were collected using two survey instruments that were generally alike, although each included some questions unique to it. Measured behaviors reported by respondents in the inmate sample occurred before their arrival at the correctional facility; those reported by respondents in the student sample occurred before the survey administration.

Dependent variable

A single dependent variable was investigated: co-occurring drug trafficking and gun carrying behavior. To determine if drug trafficking and gun carrying actually co-occurred, we created a trichotomous dependent variable for each of the two samples separately, measured by questions on respondents’ drug trafficking and gun carrying.

Every respondent was asked to describe his involvement in drug dealing. The responses were collapsed into two categories: involved in drug dealing (those reporting that they were dealers themselves, that they worked for dealers, or that they used drugs and sold them) and not involved (those reporting that they never used drugs nor bought drugs from or sold them for drug dealers).

Those in the inmate sample were asked how often they carried a gun, with responses collapsing into two categories: those who had carried a gun at least once (whether that entailed an occasion or two or a regular practice) and those who had never carried a gun. To determine lifetime gun-carrying behavior, those in the student sample were asked to answer two questions: first, how often they carried a gun outside the home; second, how often they carried a gun to school. Response categories were only now and then, most of the time, and all the time. For students, the two classifications pertaining to their gun-carrying behavior before the interview were (a) carrying a gun to school or another location outside the home at least one time and (b) never having carried a gun.

Three categories measured the dependent variable: respondents who had dealt drugs or carried guns (either behavior), respondents who had dealt drugs and carried guns (co-occurring behavior), and as the reference group, respondents who had neither dealt drugs nor carried guns.

Independent variables

In the present study, three independent variables measured individual-level disadvantage factors: absent father, employment status, and history of expulsion from school. For the inmate sample, these were measured for the period preceding arrest and incarceration. All three variables had been used in previous studies to measure sociodemographic status (Black & Ricardo, 1994; Miller & Miller, 1997; Okundaye et al., 2001). The absent father variable was coded dichotomously; respondents who resided with their fathers provided the reference group. The expulsion variable was dichotomous as well, with one response indicating that a respondent had been expelled from school in the past and with the other indicating that a respondent had never been expelled from school (the reference category).

The employment status variable was intended to measure poverty (Miller & Miller, 1997) and was coded as two categories: respondent employed full-time and respondent not employed full-time (reference group). For the student sample, full-time was defined as at least 20 hours of work per week. Among adolescents, employment status may be an important indicator of poverty, as revealed from a literature review by Leventhal, Graber, and Brooks-Gunn (2001). Low-income youths’ employment may be associated with such factors as parent’s employment, welfare use, and father’s presence. It is not uncommon, however, for youths who need and want jobs to be unable to obtain work, owing to “cultural displays,” as discussed by Anderson (1999). Because no truly appropriate poverty measure was available in the secondary data, the present study took youths’ employment status as its measure of poverty. Steinberg, Fegley, and Dornbusch (1993) found that adolescents who were employed more than 20 hours per week were at increased risk of drug/alcohol use and delinquency in general. Therefore, youths’ full-time employment was hypothesized to be associated with the presence of co-occurring behavior.

The study included two additional independent variables: one measuring race and the other, code-based beliefs. To measure beliefs, a seven-item index was created to assess how strongly the surveyed youths subscribed to various tenets of the code of the street (even though our study’s concern was strictly confined to the young men’s attitudes about gun carrying). The index comprises statements about possible sources of status, respect, and manhood, accompanied by responses ranging from 1 (not important) to 3 (very important). It includes five items measuring the importance of gun carrying—namely, for purposes of defending oneself, feeling more secure, being prepared, discouraging others from interfering with one, and preserving one’s drug-trafficking business (the same 3-point response scale rated each purpose).

The two remaining items in the index involve a 4-point response scale from 1 (disagree strongly) to 4 (agree strongly). Respondents chose a response to each of two statements: “Without a gun, I would lack respect among my crowd” and “Without a gun, my friends would look down on me.” Because two response scales were used, we obtained standardized scores for all seven items, which were summed to produce an index score. The index had moderately high internal consistency for both the inmate sample (alpha = .72) and the student sample (alpha = .76). In measuring race for this study, we deemed it a substantive variable having three categories: Black (the reference category), Hispanic, and Other (non-Black/non-Hispanic).

Control variables

The study employed two control variables: age and history of violence. We measured each respondent’s age continuously; all were teenagers 15 to 19 years old. We used history of violence as a control variable for the inmate sample only, given that the data do not provide the pertinent information for the student sample. Because it is a crucial part of Anderson’s theoretical construct (1999), violence has been measured by many researchers as a dependent variable (Brezina et al., 2004; Stewart et al., 2006; Stewart & Simons, 2006). Our data provide a variable indicating the ages at which inmates had used violence to hurt someone, if they had. The variable was recoded to produce a dichotomous variable having two responses: Inmate has tried to hurt someone in the past, and inmate has not tried to hurt someone in the past (the reference group).

Data Analysis

Using samples comprising 15- to 19-year-old male students and correctional facility inmates, the study sought to explain a trichotomous outcome variable: co-occurring drug trafficking and gun carrying. We chose multinomial logistic regression to test the models because it provides an analytical technique that evaluates effects of race, individual-level disadvantage factors, and code-based beliefs about gun carrying on (a) co-occurring drug trafficking and gun carrying and (b) drug trafficking or gun carrying singly, when age and history of violence are controlled. With nonoccurrence of drug trafficking or gun carrying as the reference category, the regression results can provide for the simultaneous comparison of effects of race, disadvantage, and code-based beliefs on drug trafficking, gun carrying, and co-occurring behavior.

Three regression procedures were involved. First, co-occurring drug dealing and gun carrying were regressed on all the individual-level disadvantage factors, on race, and on the control variables. Second, the variable code-based beliefs variable was added to the model to evaluate whether the beliefs factor mediated the effects of the individual-level factors on the trichotomous outcome variable. Third, we entered interaction terms into the model (Code-Based Beliefs × Race) to determine if beliefs’ effects on co-occurring behavior were moderated by race, as demonstrated by significant interaction effects.

A finding of a significant interaction term would allow the third model to constitute the final model for the particular sample involved (students or inmates); a finding that terms were not significant would call for the second model to constitute the final model. We employed mean substitution to address missing data associated with the code-based beliefs variable, and we used listwise deletion to address missing data during our data analysis.

Results

According to the self-reported data, 63.1% of the student sample had had no involvement in drug trafficking or gun carrying, and 15.5% had engaged in both behaviors simultaneously. Of the surveyed inmates, 8.6% had had no involvement in drug trafficking or gun carrying, and 65.1% had engaged in the co-occurring behavior. In rough terms, one sample’s measure for the dependent variable is the inverse of the other’s (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics for All Variables

	Student Sample				Inmate Sample
Variables	%	M	Cases	SD	%	M	Cases	SD
Drug trafficking / gun carrying			477				613
None	63.10				8.60
Either behavior	21.40				26.30
Both behaviors	15.50				65.10
Absent father			679	0.50			686	0.46
Yes	50.70				70.00
No	49.30				30.00
Full-time job			685	0.35			746	0.28
Yes	14.30				8.80
No	85.70				91.20
Ever been expelled			493	0.40			561	0.35
Yes	19.90				85.70
No	80.10				14.30
Race (Black as reference)			693				737
Black	73.40				46.00
Hispanic	17.70				29.30
Non-Black/non-Hispanic	8.80				24.70
Age		16.43	695	1.13		17.09	750	1.13
Code-based beliefs		−0.11	695	3.54		0.00	750	3.69
Ever hurt someone							732	0.42
Yes					76.80
No					23.20

Similarly inversed proportions were found for the independent variable history of expulsion from school, with 80.1% of the student sample reporting no such history and 85.7% of the inmate sample having been expelled. With respect to the independent variable employment status, only 14.3% of the students and 8.8% of the inmates in the samples reported that they worked full-time. As for the absent father variable, 50.7% of the students and 70.0% of the inmates did not reside with their fathers.

The student sample was 73.4% African American and 17.7 % Hispanic, with the remainder classifying themselves as non-Black/non-Hispanic. The inmate sample was 46.0% African American and 29.3% Hispanic, with the remainder classifying themselves as non-Black/non-Hispanic. Because items in the gun-carrying beliefs index (based on the code of the street) were standardized before being summed, the respective average index scores of −0.11 and 0.00 closely approach the midpoint.

Averages for the control variable age were (at the time of survey administration) 16.4 years for the student sample and 17.1 years for the inmate sample. More than three fourths of the inmate sample (76.8%) reported having used violence to try to hurt someone (trying to hurt someone was not measured for the student sample). Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics for the dependent and independent variables.

Before starting the three-step multinomial logistic regression, we looked for collinearity among the predictors. Table 2 shows correlations for all included variables; the inmate sample’s statistics appear to the left of the diagonal, and the student sample’s appear to the right of the diagonal. To secure meaningful results, the two categorical variables from the study (race and co-occurring behavior) were each recoded to create two dummy variables. No correlation coefficient was so strong as to raise concern. Furthermore, we computed tolerance statistics, indicating that no serious distortion of the multivariate data analyses would be caused by multicollinearity.

Table 2.

Correlations of All Included Variables for Inmates (Left of Diagonal) and Students (Right of Diagonal)

Variables	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
1:	Hispanic		−.144**	−.170**	.016	−.031		−.018	.026	−.037	−.097*
2:	Non-Black/non-Hispanic	−.369**		−.134**	−.040	−.138**		−.013	−.046	−.038	−.140**
3:	Absent father	−.150**	.015		.044	.018		.056	−.058	.005	.054
4:	Full-time job	.012	.093*	−.015		.025		.149**	.022	.136**	.048
5:	Ever been expelled	−.003	.050	−.023	−.009			−.074	.150**	.212**	.157**
6:	Ever hurt someone	.060	−.033	−.020	.003	.161**
7:	Age	−.002	.092*	.048	.100**	.041	.066		−.018	.034	.007
8:	Code-based beliefs	.056	−.077*	.043	−.024	.040	.203**	.015		.182**	.210**
9:	Gun carrying	.011	−.068	.035	−.038	.062	.344**	−.047	.246**		.481**
10:	Drug dealing	−.040	−.223**	.101*	−.036	.082	.161**	.104**	.304**	.255**

Note: The included categorical variables were each recoded as two dummy variables.

p < .05. **p < .01.

During each step of the multinomial logistic regression, we compared the category “respondents who reported dealing drugs and carrying guns” and the category “respondents who reported carrying guns or respondents who reported dealing drugs” against a reference group of respondents who reported never engaging in either behavior. Additionally, we compared the former category (co-occurring behavior) against either drug trafficking or gun carrying, in the context of each behavior’s relationship to its nonoccurrence. Results for both the student sample and the inmate sample show that each specified model differs significantly from its corresponding null model.

Multinomial regression analysis of the student sample shows history of expulsion from school to be the only individual-level disadvantage variable significantly explaining either behavior, as well as co-occurring behavior, both before and after code-based beliefs variable was entered in the model. Before inclusion of code-based beliefs, students with a history of expulsion proved 3 times as likely to simultaneously deal drugs and carry guns as students who were never expelled. Including the beliefs in the model generates some mediation of the effects that school expulsion wields on co-occurring behaviors. Nevertheless, students who had been expelled from school were 1.6 times likelier to have engaged in drug trafficking and gun carrying than were students never expelled. Other disadvantage factors were not found to be significant for either model (see Table 3).

Table 3.

Determinants of the Log Odds of Drug Trafficking and Gun Carrying: Student Sample (n = 420)

	Either Drug Trafficking or Gun Carrying				Co-Occurring Behavior
	First Step		Second Step		First Step		Second Step
Variables	b	Odds Ratio	b	Odds Ratio	b	Odds Ratio	b	Odds Ratio
Age	0.117	1.124	0.117	1.125	0.001	1.001	−0.015	0.985
Absent father	0.021	1.022	0.083	1.087	0.070	1.073	0.184	1.202
Full-time job	0.367	1.444	0.355	1.426	0.435	1.545	0.401	1.493
Ever been expelled	0.873**	2.393	0.827**	2.286	1.121**	3.068	0.970**	2.638
Race (reference: Black)
Non-Black/non-Hispanic	−0.362	0.697	−0.360	0.698	−2.253*	0.105	−2.303*	0.100
Hispanic	−0.170	0.844	−0.187	0.829	−0.692*	0.501	−0.751*	0.472
Code-based beliefs			0.059*	1.061			0.167**	1.182
Constant	−3.167		−3.163		−1.489		−1.269
G					272.633**		654.197**
Nagelkerke R²					0.098		0.149

p < .05.

Like school expulsion, race has a role in the co-occurring behavior tracked by the study. For the student sample, African American students were more likely than other students to simultaneously deal drugs and carry guns. The final model shows that compared to African American students, Hispanic students were 53% less likely to participate in co-occurring behavior, whereas other students (including White students) were 90% less likely to do so. The study found a firm link between strong subscription to code-based beliefs on gun carrying and a relatively high likelihood of trafficking drugs, carrying guns, or both, tending to bear out Anderson’s theory (1999). Specifically, each unit increase in the code-based beliefs variable is linked to a 6.1% higher likelihood of trafficking drugs or carrying a gun and to an 18.2% higher likelihood of exhibiting co-occurring behaviors. Clearly, the significant and much stronger effects that race, expulsion, and code-based gun-carrying beliefs wield on co-occurring behavior, as compared to the single behaviors, testify to the suitability of applying Anderson’s code of the street in the examination of serious law violation by inner-city youth.

Adding to the models the two interaction terms involving race and code-based beliefs on gun carrying produces no significant results. (The coefficients for Non-Black/Non-Hispanic × Code-Based Beliefs and for Hispanic × Code-Based Beliefs were, respectively, .05 and −.07 for either behavior singly and −.39 and .13 for co-occurring behavior.) Thus, these beliefs’ effects on students’ co-occurring behavior do not differ significantly by race.

An insignificant role for race was also found for students’ drug-trafficking and gun-carrying behaviors singly. In addition, because the coefficients for variables other than race and code-based beliefs differ only slightly from results with the second model (excluding interaction terms), the second model constitutes the final model for the student sample.

Analysis of the inmate sample shows absent father to be the only individual-level disadvantage variable significantly explaining drug trafficking, gun carrying, and co-occurring behavior both before and after code-based beliefs variable is entered in the model. Before the inclusion of code-based beliefs, having an absent father made an inmate 279% more likely than inmates living with their fathers to simultaneously deal drugs and carry guns. Including beliefs in the model generated some mediation of absent father’s effects on co-occurring behavior, but after such inclusion, even inmates with absent fathers were 267% likelier than inmates who did live with their fathers to have trafficked drugs and carried guns simultaneously. Other disadvantage factors were not found to be significant for either model (see Table 4).

Table 4.

Determinants of the Log Odds of Drug Trafficking and Gun Carrying: Inmate Sample (n = 450)

	Either Drug Trafficking or Gun Carrying				Co-Occurring Behavior
	First Step		Second Step		First Step		Second Step
Variables	b	Odds Ratio	b	Odds Ratio	b	Odds Ratio	b	Odds Ratio
Age	−0.648**	0.523	−0.627*	0.534	−0.399	0.671	−0.361	0.697
Absent father	1.054*	2.870	1.046*	2.847	1.333**	3.793	1.300**	3.669
Full-time job	0.463	1.589	0.429	1.536	0.001	1.001	−0.026	0.974
Ever been expelled	−0.002	0.998	0.000	1.000	0.600	1.821	0.547	1.729
Race (Black as reference)
Non-Black/non-Hispanic	−1.778*	0.169	−1.833**	0.160	−2.685**	0.068	−2.719**	0.066
Hispanic	−0.986	0.373	−1.093	0.335	−1.627*	0.197	−1.831*	0.160
Ever hurt others	0.666	1.946	0.544	1.723	1.759**	5.806	1.487**	4.423
Code-based beliefs			0.041	1.042			0.214**	1.239
Constant	12.753**		12.605**		8.467*		8.262
G					308.759**		552.664**
Nagelkerke R²					0.204		0.282

p < .05. **p < .01.

The control variable history of violence (having used violence to try to hurt someone) was found to be significant in all models, which indicates that an inmate with a past experience of being violent was likelier than other inmates to have dealt drugs or carried a gun or both (simultaneously). For the inmate sample, a second control variable, age, was found to significantly explain either drug-trafficking or gun-carrying behavior. The younger the inmate, the more likely he was to have participated in drug trafficking or to have carried a gun. Within the second model, age did not significantly explain inmates’ participation in co-occurring behavior.

There were some further findings about race from the inmate sample. Race proved significant in explaining co-occurring behavior, both before and after inclusion of code-based beliefs. Respectively, Hispanic and non-Black/non-Hispanic inmates in our study were 84.0% and 93.4% less likely than African American inmates to have exhibited co-occurring behavior, when disadvantage and beliefs factors were controlled. In addition, African American inmates were found more likely than non-Black/non-Hispanic inmates to have trafficked drugs or carried a gun. The code-based beliefs variable did not significantly predict either gun carrying or drug trafficking. However, a one-unit increase in an inmate’s measure for code-based beliefs explained a 23.9% increase in his likelihood of reporting co-occurring behavior. Corresponding to our findings for the student sample, in the inmate sample, effects on co-occurring behavior that were wielded by race, absent father, history of violence, and code-based beliefs about gun carrying were much stronger than these variables’ effects on either behavior singly.

As in the analysis of the student sample, code-based beliefs’ effects on inmates’ co-occurring behavior did not differ significantly by race, given that including the two interaction terms involving race and beliefs produced no significant result. (The coefficients for Non-Black/Non-Hispanic × Code-Based Beliefs and for Hispanic × Code-Based Beliefs were, respectively, .15 and .13 for either behavior singly and .11 and .09 for co-occurring behavior.) As in the student sample, the coefficients for variables other than inmates’ race and code-based beliefs differed only slightly from those produced by the second model, which included no interaction terms; so, the second model was the final model for the inmate sample.

Discussion and Conclusions

The 1980s saw a rise in drug trafficking and gun carrying by African American residents of the inner city, related to what became known as the crack epidemic (Blumstein, 1995). Eventually, drug trafficking and gun carrying by African Americans would be documented as a phenomenon in and of itself (Li & Feigelman, 1994). Within specific research contexts, inner-city residents’ simultaneous drug trafficking and gun carrying became known as co-occurring behavior (Black & Ricardo, 1994; Blumstein, 1995; Braga, 2003; Sheley, 1994). Carrying firearms while dealing drugs increases the risk of gunshot injuries and fatalities, especially among urban African American male youth (Whitehead et al., 1994); this is the population for which co-occurring behavior has been best documented (Black & Ricardo, 1994; Centers & Weist, 1998; Stanton & Galbraith, 1994), so there is a need for studies of the phenomenon in this population. Prior research suggests Black youths in the inner city are likelier than other individuals to sell drugs and carry guns (Black & Ricardo, 1994; Centers & Weist, 1998; Stanton & Galbraith, 1994), and the general findings of the present study dovetail with that position.

This study is the first that we are aware to examine simultaneous drug trafficking and gun carrying from a theory-based perspective; it is also the first to ask whether a set of explanatory factors is valid for African American and non–African American populations. Seeking mechanisms underlying inner-city Black youths’ co-occurring behavior, the study sought to explain such behavior within the framework of Anderson’s theory (1999) of the code of the street. Anderson’s theory holds that some inner-city Black youths internalize the code of the street to cope with individual-level disadvantage factors separating them financially and socially from the larger society. In terms of Anderson’s theory, the results of the current study indicate that internalizing aspects of the street code pertaining to carrying guns indeed fosters co-occurring behavior. In addition to applying Anderson’s theory to explain such behavior, the current study evaluated the generalizability of his theory to a sample of 15- to 19-year-old students and to a sample of 15- to 19-year-old inmates.

Employment, an absent father, and expulsion from school were the individual-level disadvantage factors explored. School expulsion significantly predicted co-occurring behavior for the student sample, an important finding that confirms prior research linking a history of expulsion to such behavior (Black & Ricardo, 1994; Callahan & Rivara, 1992). Moreover, the present results for the inmate sample confirm the literature’s general position on the importance of a father’s presence at home when it comes to deterring some young males from trafficking drugs (Friedman et al., 1998; Okundaye et al., 2001). For our inmate sample but not for our student sample, effects of an absent father on drug trafficking, gun carrying, and co-occurring behavior are significant, which may indicate that the father’s role in a young person’s life is the most important role when other role models, such as teachers, are in short supply. Much likelier than our surveyed students to have been expelled from school, our inmates might have encountered fewer conventional adult role models.

Race, which was employed in this study as an independent variable but not a disadvantage factor, significantly and consistently explained co-occurring behavior for both samples. Our results show African Americans to be more likely than Hispanic and other racial groups to report prior co-occurring behavior. To date, empirical research on African Americans with regard to poverty, families, and education has regularly insinuated that race figures in the risk of co-occurring behavior (Anderson, 1999; Black & Ricardo, 1994; Friedman et al., 1998; Okundaye et al., 2001). It may be the case, then, that race constitutes an important, if indirect, disadvantage factor, given its link to poverty and related disadvantages (Kubrin, 2005; Massey & Eggers, 1990; Sampson, 1987; Stewart et al., 2006). The present study’s significant findings concerning race (both samples), school expulsion (student sample), and absent father (inmate sample) tend to confirm that individual-level disadvantages affect co-occurring behavior in important ways.

This study also found that—without involving race—code-based beliefs significantly explain urban male youths’ co-occurring behavior, which supports Anderson’s theory (1999). However, for both samples, the study found that interaction terms involving race and code-based beliefs produce no statistically significant effect. This latter finding, unlike the former, clearly supports those researchers who reported that race does not moderate the relationship between beliefs and criminal behavior. Regressing code-based beliefs on race and on disadvantage factors in a multiple regression context, we found no significant result among the race coefficients for either sample (data analysis not shown). Our analysis then suggests that the development of code-based beliefs about gun carrying (and these beliefs’ effects on co-occurring behavior) may not be race specific.

Our study had some limitations, among them its secondary nature. We used a 1991 data set, one unlikely to describe co-occurring behavior in contemporary neighborhoods. Still, the data were well suited to the study, which was theory based and did not examine the extent of the behavior today. However, several measures used by Sheley et al. (1991) were less than ideal for our specific inquiry. For example, we would have preferred our model to include disadvantage factors beyond the rather inadequate employment, absent father, and school expulsion variables. Respondents’ employment status provides only a proxy measure of poverty but was used in the absence of objective measures (e.g., census data, welfare enrollment, receipt of food stamps or subsidized school lunches) from the survey instruments. Our study was also unable to distinguish youth who worked to earn spending money for themselves from those who worked to bolster family income.

Concerning the student sample, the quality of the model specification may have suffered from the lack of measures for respondents’ history of violence. Finally, our use of cross-sectional data precludes demonstrating any cause–effect relationships or verifying temporal ordering. Future researchers need access to longitudinal data to establish which causal mechanisms underlie simultaneous drug dealing and gun carrying by urban male youth. In any case, research on co-occurring drug trafficking and gun carrying should continue as the phenomenon continues to evolve.

Use of data on inmates and students, our study’s two samples, reflects in part our effort to capture youth whose approaches to life represent a continuum of Anderson’s decent and street-oriented values. Our samples are likely to represent widespread points on such a continuum; so, for the second model, we conducted t tests, comparing the coefficients of explanatory variables found for each sample. In comparing the coefficients, we aimed to pin down any differences in the explanatory variables’ effects on co-occurring behavior and on drug trafficking and gun carrying singly. The t-test results for the inmate sample show the absent father coefficient to explain co-occurring behavior significantly more strongly than the same coefficient does for the student sample (t = 2.0, p < .05). Also within the inmate sample, the age coefficient explains drug dealing alone and gun carrying alone, significantly more strongly than the same coefficient does within the student sample (t = 2.66, p < .01). These statistically significant disparities suggest how the samples may reflect the youths’ and their families’ disparate locations along Anderson’s values continuum (1999). For truly adequate application of Anderson’s theory, future researchers should consider employing a single sample of heterogeneous respondents whose views reflect the variety of code-based beliefs that are in fact possible.

The more significant and stronger effects found here for race and code-based beliefs in terms of explaining co-occurring drug trafficking and gun carrying versus the occurrence of these behaviors singly argue the appropriateness of applying Anderson’s code of the street to understand American youths’ serious criminal behavior. Because drug trafficking and gun carrying are each a serious crime, their co-occurrence points to our data’s overwhelming capture of inner-city youth who grew up in communities suffused with code-related beliefs about illegal activities that entail serious consequences.

Policy makers should carefully consider the evidence available from the present study as they respond to the social problem of youths’ drug trafficking and gun carrying in the inner city. Because African Americans are more likely than other racial groups to deal drugs and carry guns (Black & Ricardo, 1994; Centers & Weist, 1998; Stanton & Galbraith, 1994), policy makers must address racial disparity inherent in co-occurring behavior. Policies in place today try to combat youths’ drug trafficking, strengthen family structures and see fewer children living in poverty, enhance parenting skills and educate all children adequately, use school programs to curtail drug trafficking, divert juveniles from the criminal justice system (and youthful offenders, especially first-time offenders, from jails), fund job training for youth, and better regulate gun sales and ownership (Leviton, Schindler, & Orleans, 1994). But as Leviton et al. (1994) pointed out, available programs embodying such policies are scarce.

A further strategy might involve removing the drug trade’s great economic appeal among youths (Li & Feigelman, 1994; Stanton & Galbraith, 1994) but not just through jobs programs and the like. Especially in African American communities, campaigns are needed to make clear that a community is intolerant of drug trafficking and that the monetary rewards of that lifestyle will be met with the community’s contempt (Li & Feigelman, 1994; Stanton & Galbraith, 1994). Mass media messages may prove effective tools in antitrafficking campaigns in the communities most at risk (Romer, 1994).

Economic rewards draw young African American males to the drug trade, and co-occurring gun carrying often takes them out of it, disabled or dead (Anderson, 1999; Black & Ricardo, 1994; Whitehead et al., 1994). Moreover, according to qualitative research by Okundaye (2004), violence and victimization encountered during drug trafficking may lead to posttraumatic stress disorder, posttraumatic stress, or other symptoms. Okundaye outlined a preventive antitrafficking approach in which the needs of the impoverished are the top priority, given that poor communities often have more unemployment, undereducation, social disorganization, drug use, and abusive families than do wealthier communities. These factors together create an environment conducive to violence, whether or not drug trafficking is involved, and they facilitate co-occurring behavior. Whether provoked by a drug transaction or some other reason from this list of persistent difficulties, violence significantly affects the overall well-being of too many children and youth (Okundaye, 2004).

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interests with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.

Financial Disclosure/Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.

Bios

Andrea N. Allen received her master’s degree at the University of Alabama. She is pursuing her doctorate in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of South Carolina. Her research interests include drug markets, firearms markets, and criminological theory.

Celia C. Lo is a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Alabama. Her research interests include the sociology of drugs and alcohol, juvenile delinquency, and drugs and crime.

References

Anderson

(1999). Code of the street: Decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city. New York: Norton.

Black

Hausman

(2008). Adolescents’ views of guns in a high-violence community. Journal of Adolescent Research, 23, 592-610.

Black

M. M.

Ricardo

I. B.

(1994). Drug use, drug trafficking, and weapon carrying among low-income, African-American, early adolescent boys. Pediatrics, 93, 1065-1072.

Blumstein

(1995). Youth violence, guns, and the illicit-drug industry. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 86, 10-36.

Braga

A. A.

(2003). Serious youth gun offenders and the epidemic of youth violence in Boston. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 19, 33-54.

Brezina

Agnew

Cullen

F. T.

Wright

J. P.

(2004). The code of the street: A quantitative assessment of Elijah Anderson’s subculture of violence thesis and its contribution to youth violence research. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 2, 303-328.

Callahan

C. M.

Rivara

F. P.

(1992). Urban high school youth and handguns: A school-based survey. Journal of the American Medical Association, 267, 3038-3042.

Centers

N. L.

Weist

M. D.

(1998). Inner city youth and drug dealing: A review of the problem. Journal of Youth Adolescence, 27, 395-411.

Fingerhut

(1993). Firearm mortality among children, youth, and young adults 1–34 years of age, trends and current status: United States, 1985-90: Advance data. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics.

10.

Fingerhut

L. A.

Christoffel

K. K.

(2002). Firearm-related death and injury among children and adolescents. The Future of Children, 12, 24-37.

11.

Friedman

A. S.

Ali

McMurphy

(1998). Father absence as a risk factor for substance use and illegal behavior by the adolescent sons. Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse, 8, 79-95.

12.

Goldstein

P. J.

(1985). The drugs/violence nexus: A tripartite conceptual framework. Journal of Drug Issues, 14, 493-506.

13.

Kubrin

C. E.

(2005). Gangstas, thugs, and hustlas: Identity and the code of the street in rap music. Social Problems, 52, 360-378.

14.

Leventhal

Graber

J. A.

Brooks-Gunn

(2001). Adolescent transitions to young adulthood: Antecedents, correlates, and consequences of adolescent employment. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 11, 297-323.

15.

Leviton

Schindler

M. A.

Orleans

R. S.

(1994). African-American youth: Drug trafficking and the justice system. Pediatrics, 93, 1078-1084.

16.

Feigelman

(1994). Recent and intended drug trafficking among male and female urban African-American early adolescents. Pediatrics, 93, 1044-1049.

17.

Markowitz

F. E.

Felson

R. B.

(1998). Social-demographic attitudes and violence. Criminology, 36, 117-138.

18.

Massey

D. S.

Eggers

M. L.

(1990). The ecology of inequality: Minorities and the concentration of poverty, 1970–1980. American Journal of Sociology, 95, 1153-1188.

19.

Miller

D. S.

Miller

T. Q.

(1997). A test of socioeconomic status as a predictor of initial marijuana use. Addictive Behaviors, 22, 479-489.

20.

Moore

M. H.

Tonry

(1998). Youth violence in America. Crime and Justice, 24, 1-26.

21.

Okundaye

J. N.

(2004). Drug trafficking and urban African American youth: Risk factors for PTSD. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, 21, 285-302.

22.

Okundaye

J. N.

Cornelius

L. J.

Manning

(2001). Drug trafficking among African American youth: Risk factors for future incarceration. Journal of African American Studies, 5, 39-63.

23.

Ousey

G. C.

Lee

M. R.

(2002). Examining the conditional nature of the illicit drug market-homicide relationship: A partial test of the theory of contingent causation. Criminology, 40, 73-102.

24.

Romer

(1994). Using mass media to reduce adolescent involvement in drug trafficking. Pediatrics, 93, 1073-1077.

25.

Sampson

R. T.

(1987). Urban Black violence: The effect of male joblessness and family disruption. American Journal of Sociology, 93, 348-382.

26.

Sheley

J. F.

(1994). Drugs and guns among inner-city high school students. Journal of Drug Education, 24, 303-321.

27.

Sheley

J. F.

Wright

J. D.

Smith

M. D.

(1991). Firearms, violence, and youth in California, Illinois, Louisiana, and New Jersey, 1991 [Data file]. Retrieved July 28, 2008, from http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/

28.

Stanton

Galbraith

(1994). Drug trafficking among African-American early adolescents: Prevalence, consequences, and associated behaviors and beliefs. Pediatrics, 93, 1039-1043.

29.

Steinberg

Fegley

Dornbusch

(1993). Negative impact of part-time work on adolescent adjustment: Evidence from a longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology, 29, 171-180.

30.

Stewart

E. A.

Schreck

C. J.

Simons

R. L.

(2006). “I ain’t gonna let no one disrespect me.” Does the code of the street reduce or increase violent victimization among African American adolescents? Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 43, 427-458.

31.

Stewart

E. A.

Simons

R. L.

(2006). Structure and culture in African American adolescent violence: A partial test of the “code of the street” thesis. Justice Quarterly, 23, 1-33.

32.

Whitehead

T. L.

Peterson

Kaljee

(1994). The “hustle”: Socioeconomic deprivation, urban drug trafficking, and low-income, African-American male gender identity. Pediatrics, 93, 1050-1054.