“I’m Not Just Runnin’ the Streets”

Violence, Violence Management Strategies, and Urban Adolescent Development

Violence is costly, in the broad sense of the term, causing physical injury, psychological trauma, death, loss of productivity, disruption in social services, increased health-care expenditures, and a decrease in neighborhood property values (Gorman-Smith & Tolan, 1998; Mercy, Rosenberg, Powell, Broome, & Roper, 1993; Williams, Rivera, Neighbours, & Reznik, 2007). Young people are disproportionately the victims and perpetrators of violence (Williams et al., 2007). In 2010, homicide was the second leading cause of death for young people aged 10 to 24 years (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, n.d [CDC]). Among this age group, homicide is the leading cause of death for African Americans and the second leading cause of death for Latinos (CDC, n.d.). Homicide rates among African American males of ages 10 to 24 years (51.5 per 100,000) exceed those of Latino males (13.5 per 100,000) and White males (2.9 per 100,000) of the same age group (CDC, n.d.). Also, homicide rates among African American girls of ages 10 to 24 years (3.7 per 100,000) is higher than for any other group of females of this age group and also higher than White and Asian males of this age group (CDC, n.d.). In urban communities, neighborhood violence is often pervasive, as many public and private spaces are potential sites for danger or conflict. While exposure to youth violence and possibilities for intervention have been examined extensively at the home, school, and community levels (Aisenberg, Ayón, & Orozco-Figueroa, 2008; Buka, Stichick, Birdthistle, & Earls, 2001; Gorman-Smith, Henry, & Tolan, 2004; Ozer & Weinstein, 2004), we still know little about the daily, active, and often preventive work that youth enlist as a response to the potential or actual threat of violence.

Theoretical frameworks and critiques focused on the development of youth of color suggest that across the life course, individuals are engaged in the processes of appraising risks that are linked to sociocultural contexts and normative developmental tasks (Spencer, Dupree, & Hartmann, 1997). The extant literature, primarily based on quantitative studies concerning the impact of urban neighborhoods on child and adolescent development, tend to focus on linear theories of “normative” development, based on samples of mostly European-American adolescents from high socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds, with outcomes of interest, including physical health, teenage pregnancy, depression, aggression, substance use, and educational attainment (Burton & Jarrett, 2004). These frames may label youth of color in high-risk neighborhoods as “deviant” when in fact their developmental trajectory and related decisions and strategies are responsive and agentic according to their contextual realities (Booth & Crouter, 2001). In addition to these agentic resources that urban youth of color harness within themselves psychologically and emotionally in order to navigate risky environments that often lack an abundance of high-quality neighborhood amenities and services, community institutions within urban communities can also provide youth with cognitive, emotional, and social development competencies that support their healthy development (Coll et al., 1996).

The last 25 years have amassed a body of mostly qualitative studies which explore the various ways that low-income youth of color navigate violence in their communities and their lives. Prothrow-Stith is a pioneer in violence prevention research, practice, and policy with her work, Deadly Consequences (Prothrow-Stith & Weissman, 1991), being one of the first book-length studies to frame youth violence as a public health issue, not just a criminal justice problem. The qualitative case studies and quantitative analysis in this work highlight the widespread availability of handguns, disinvestment in urban neighborhoods, fractured public education systems, and limited employment opportunities contributing to the epidemic of urban youth violence, and urge a multidisciplinary approach to combat it.

Anderson’s (1999) critically important frame of the “code of the street” ethnographically describes young Black men’s pursuit of respect and the subsequent violence that results as a way of maintaining this respect. Later, Rich and Grey (2005) and Rich (2009) go on to describe, using grounded theory methodology and narrative analysis, how the “code” plays out for gunshot and stabbing victims. In his work, he found that young Black men resort to violence to regain respect through retaliation and to achieve neighborhood order as they do not have faith in the police and the judicial system. Respect then becomes a form of social capital in their lives and core to their self-esteem and self-expression. Mateu-Gelabert and Lune (2007) describe the “code” as it plays out in public high schools and assert that students adopt a “code of the street” rather than a school orientation in order to protect themselves in school environments that are disorganized and disengaging. While Anderson describes gang members and drug dealers as socially organizing the neighborhood, per the “code of the street,” Harding (2010) describes the dominant role that older peers play in offering protection to younger peers in urban neighborhoods. N. Jones’ (2009) ethnographic study based in Philadelphia is significant for describing the “code” for girls, particularly Black girls, whose distressed urban neighborhoods often place them in the liminal space between avoiding violence and self-identifying as fighters in order to protect themselves.

What these and the growing body of literature in this area emphasize are the agentic responses to violence by urban adolescents, with particular attention to the active ways that youth manage the threat of violence by using a range of strategies. Such analyses of violence management strategies for young people reframe conceptions of adolescent development, as youth in high-risk neighborhoods have been found to begin coping with neighborhood violence at a very young age (Brady, Gorman-Smith, Henry, & Tolan, 2008; Gorman-Smith & Tolan, 1998; Irwin, 2004; Shahinfar, Fox, & Leavitt, 2000; Teitelman et al., 2010). For example, violence management processes among youth have been framed as “risk-avoidance strategies” (Cobbina, Miller, & Brunson, 2008). These strategies acknowledge youth’s ecological proximity to violence (Sampson & Lauritsen, 1990) and their cultural adaptations to urban inequalities (Anderson, 1999). The youth in Cobbina et al.’s study describe their immediate neighborhood as safe and spend most of their time close to their homes. This study further revealed a gendered organization of urban neighborhood life; some risk-management strategies employed by young men, such as traveling in groups, create perceptions of danger for young women, who tend to withdraw from public life. The aforementioned Harding describes the active strategies that boys enlist to avoid being victims of violence, including forming peer networks with older boys. In Jones’ work, the “situated survival strategies” that young women in urban neighborhoods exercise around a concern for personal safety are conceptualized with respect to two main categories: “situational avoidance” in which young women avoid settings and situations that pose threats, and “relational isolation” which entails young women’s isolation from friendships in which loyalty ties might necessitate violent encounters in defense of others’ safety. These strategies become patterns, routines, and rituals in which young women engage in order to manage threats.

Extensive research with a large, longitudinal cohort of ages 9 to 15 years in Chicago highlighted how youth’s “street efficacy” (Sharkey, 2006)—their perceived ability to avoid violent confrontations as they navigate through their “imposed environments”—helped them to seek out safe “selected environments” and safer peer groups. Similarly, research among young adolescent African American and Latino students in New York identified the concept of “street literacy” (Cahill, 2000) to depict young people’s strategies for negotiating their environments on a daily basis. The practices of street literacy acknowledge experiential knowledge. These young people recommended “minding your business” in order to stay safe in urban neighborhoods (Cahill, 2000). Community-based participatory research found that navigating through safe and unsafe spaces is a constant and conscious effort (Teitelman et al., 2010). These youth specifically avoid people whom they feel put them in threatening situations, and they seek out friendships that they think will physically protect them.

Collectively, the small existing literature suggests that the umbrella term “violence prevention” does not adequately capture the dynamic and critical processes at work during urban adolescents’ development. Importantly, a nuanced understanding of these processes is needed to inform adolescent research, policy, and programmatic interventions that can enhance the strategies and resources that youth employ. We note that the majority of research on youth violence prevention is focused on school rather than neighborhood settings (Aisenberg et al., 2008; Buka et al., 2001; Gorman-Smith et al., 2004; Ozer & Weinstein, 2004). Furthermore, while extant neighborhood effects research and interventions follow populations who have moved out of risky urban environments, or who may fare better when doing so, a real focus in our study is young people who currently live in a distressed urban setting and the agentic strategies they enlist in order to navigate such risks, not just the deviant ones. Finally, while some research on youth violence posit that youth retreat from the public sphere, our study seeks to inform us on how youth remain active and involved in the public sphere along their daily round throughout their neighborhoods.

The present study seeks to address these gaps by studying the active ways in which youth manage violence in their neighborhoods on a daily basis. Specifically, through interview methods in which we engage youth recruited from a community-based organization as “agents of inquiry” (McIntyre, 2000), we investigate how young people experience and manage and micro-manage violence in their neighborhood contexts. In an ongoing examination of the social realms of resilience among African American and Latino youth in disadvantaged urban neighborhoods, we consider the following questions: (a) How do young people navigate their residential and social neighborhoods and (b) What do these strategies provide for young people? Specifically, this study seeks to document processes of safety, not just of risk.

Neighborhood and Site Selection

A broad geographic, and oftentimes economic and racial, distinction is made between “the flats” and “the hills” in the East Bay region of California. The “flatlands” or “flats” are typically working-class communities of color, while the “hills” are typically upper-class neighborhoods. These geographic boundaries also carry symbolic codes and prejudices—“the hills” get coded as safe while “the flats” get coded as dangerous (Tilton, 2010). These codes get perpetuated in public and private dialogues, and “the flats,” “the ghetto,” “the inner city,” and “the hood” become what Kelley (1997) refers to as “the Achilles’ heel in American society”—the dumping ground for poor values or economic failure.

Ginwright (2009) refers to the “perfect storm” that transformed the nature of the political and institutional infrastructures in Oakland, California, in the 1970s-1990s as the “urban trifecta,” including the demise of the Black Panther Party, the exodus of blue-collar jobs, and the spread of crack cocaine. East Oakland’s unemployment levels (27.9%) currently remain significantly higher than the City of Oakland (16%) and Alameda County (10.7%) rates (East Oakland Building Healthy Communities [EOBHC], n.d.), and the rates of violent crimes and homicides in Oakland are highly correlated with the unemployment rates (“Violent Crimes in Alameda County: A Fact Sheet,” 2010; Wilson & Riley, 2004). Over 33% of homicide victims in Oakland are between the ages of 15 and 24 years (Beyers, Jain, & Mena, 2006), and 61% of the homicides in Oakland occur in East Oakland (Spiker, Garvey, Arnold, & Williams, 2009). Moreover, residents in East Oakland regularly contend with economic, environmental, and educational inequities which manifest as structural and social determinants of their overall safety, health, and well-being.

An external community resource—the East Oakland Youth Development Center (EOYDC)—is located in the Elmhurst District of East Oakland. EOYDC has been committed to attending to the emotional, physical, intellectual, and economic well-being of the community for over 37 years. EOYDC’s mission is to equip East Oakland’s youth with the skills, training, and values necessary to become dynamic leaders and responsible citizens. EOYDC’s free, comprehensive core programming emphasizes artistic expression, job training, physical activity, and education. For 5 days a weeks, 50 weeks each year, EOYDC offers positive and safe experiences for East Oakland’s youth through a dedicated staff and various program offerings. EOYDC is an ideal site to study how urban youth violence is managed for a number of reasons. East Oakland has the greatest number and concentration of youth in the city (Oakland Fund for Children and Youth [OFCY], 2005). Additionally, East Oakland has a long history of urbanization and disinvestment (Rhomberg, 2004; Self, 2003), but is also a neighborhood selected for The California Endowment’s 10-year investment under the Building Healthy Communities initiative (EOBHC, n.d). Also, EOYDC’s positive youth development foundation, as well as it serving as a trusted environment among local young people, made it an obvious choice to conduct the kinds of conversations and doing the type of relationship building for which our study called.

This study was informed by the first author’s own standpoint (Collins, 1991) as an African American woman from a distressed and stigmatized neighborhood similar to East Oakland and as a former youth development professional in the San Francisco Bay Area and by the second author’s expertise in violence prevention and youth participatory action research. When the first author visited the research site for the first time, she was struck by an altered street sign outside of the organization’s building that said “No Killing Anytime”—a play on the typical “No Parking Anytime” street sign. EOYDC did not put up the sign, but they did not rush to have it removed either. The staff and youth at EOYDC are well aware of their precarious location in a part of the city that residents, the police, and media sources call “the killing zone” (C. Jones, 2006) or the “killer corridor” (Moody, 2008). Our subsequent interviews with African American and Latino youth living in this neighborhood and our active participation in activities at the organization quickly substantiated that the pervasive and regular nature of neighborhood violence could not be overlooked in our research. Youth can be witnesses, victims, or perpetrators of violence in many settings or realms, including in their families, homes, dating relationships, peer relationships, and schools. The focus of this study is how young people experience and manage violence in their residential and social neighborhoods and as they travel throughout these neighborhoods.

Entrée

Our entrée to EOYDC was facilitated by the organization’s Executive Director. When the first author emailed the Executive Director to explain our research proposal and process, she responded promptly and suggested that we meet in person. During the first in-person meeting at EOYDC, the Executive Director immediately saw a natural link for our project and EOYDC based on our research aims and the organization’s commitment toward individual and community transformation. By the end of the meeting, she encouraged us to call her by her first name. She felt that it would be important for us to situate ourselves in various “birds’ nests” at EOYDC. One such birds’ nest was the youth-led Summer Cultural Enrichment Program (SCEP), in which we conducted direct and participant observation for 2 months. In SCEP, approximately 40 older teens (“Youth Leaders”) develop and implement a comprehensive summer program for approximately 140 younger children (“Youth Participants”). We were soon able to meet several of the Youth Leaders and gain clues about their behaviors, interests, and perceptions. During the first week of SCEP, EOYDC’s Executive Director introduced us to Kenya (pseudonyms are used throughout for respondents’ names)—an SCEP Youth Leader and a Gates Millennium Scholar, headed to college that Fall. Kenya was passionate about planning an Anti-Violence March for EOYDC since several young people closely linked to EOYDC had recently lost their lives to neighborhood violence, including a 17-year-old young man who frequently played basketball in the EOYDC gym and who was gunned down during an argument at a bus stop near the Eastmont Town Center in East Oakland (Lee, 2010). The following week, we joined Kenya and the SCEP and EOYDC staff and participants in the Anti-Violence March down one of the main thoroughfares in East Oakland—International Boulevard. The Youth Leaders and Youth Participants chanted “Stop the killin’, so we can be chillin’!” and “Silence the Violence!” It was moving to witness and participate in this action, but it was also emotionally jarring to hear Youth Leaders’ numerous stories about losing friends and schoolmates to neighborhood violence and how they struggled to cope with these losses. One Youth Leader had lost six friends in East Oakland from neighborhood violence during one academic semester (Dill, 2015). As we became familiar faces around EOYDC, the youth felt comfortable sharing these and other stories with us.

Data Collection

To address our research questions, after gaining approval from the Institutional Review Board of the University of California, Berkeley, we conducted field research at EOYDC over a 15-month period. We used various methods to collect data, including direct and participant observation at EOYDC spaces and activities, such as the gym, homework tutorial center, computer lab, college preparatory program, GED preparatory program, young women’s empowerment group, awards ceremonies, presentations, and field trips. Additionally, we conducted neighborhood observations in the East Oakland communities where the youth work and live and key informant interviews with the EOYDC staff in their professional capacity of working with the youth there. After building these key relationships, recruitment for interviews happened easily and quickly. The youth members of EOYDC’s various programs were approached and asked if they were willing to participate in individual interviews aimed at exploring their personal goals, their involvement in EOYDC, their experiences of living in East Oakland, their perceptions of neighborhood change, and their relationships with and leveragability of networks in East Oakland. The youth seemed eager to sign-up for interview times in order to share their stories. Interested youth were provided with information on the risks and benefits of the study and were asked to sign an assent form, and their parents were asked to sign a consent form. We were able to recruit 25 African American and Latino/a youth between the ages of 12 and 20 years to participate in individual, 1-hour, semistructured interviews with us onsite in empty classroom and office spaces at EOYDC. Of the 25 respondents, 13 (52%) were African American girls, 7 (28%) were African American boys, 3 (12%) were Latino boys, and 2 (8%) were Latina girls. Respondents attended public middle schools and high schools, charter middle schools, Catholic high schools, were in the process of obtaining their GED, or were enrolled in local community colleges or 4-year universities. Collectively, these racial, ethnic, gender, and educational demographics capture the diverse characteristics of EOYDC’s population. Interviews were taped and later transcribed by a trained graduate research assistant.

Analysis

Analysis was guided by an ethnographic approach (Creswell & Clark, 2007; Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995;). Interview text was read first to identify emergent themes. Additionally, through a related participatory action research component of the study (Dill, 2015), half of the respondents agreed to review the themes from the interview data, providing member checks of the data, themes, and a preliminary analysis, as a way of increasing validity (Furman, Langer, Davis, Gallardo, & Kulkarni, 2007). Authors re-read interview text to develop detailed codes and subcodes, and the Dedoose web-based analytical program was used to aid in this process. Analytic memos were developed that addressed the themes, analytic points, and interpretation of the analytic points.

The interview excerpts below contextually illustrate and are representative of the key thematic points that emerged during analysis. Although we asked the youth to identify spatially where conflicts occurred in their neighborhood, youth’s strategies of violence management were not primary interview questions, yet emerged from the data. The excerpts below highlight how youth perceive the neighborhood spaces that they must navigate. Also, these excerpts illustrate the violence management strategies that young people enlist to navigate through East Oakland safely. Ultimately, these excerpts reveal the active efforts that youth in East Oakland undertake to manage or minimize their risks in their neighborhoods.

“There’s a Lot of Drama There”: Perceptions of Risk

Youth analytically read the risks of streets and neighborhoods to strategically navigate through Oakland safely. In spite of the pervasiveness of violence and unsafe spaces in East Oakland, many of the youth in East Oakland perceive or experience “West Oakland” as being far more unsafe. LaShay, a 17-year-old African American female, shares,

West Oakland, The Bottoms, night time—the scariest place I’ve experienced yet. Gun shots, fights, violence, drama, screaming. My first time here with my boyfriend was a scary experience. I can remember rushing to get to his house and away from all of the scariness and violence. Part of me felt safe because I was not alone but a part of me was scared for both of us, scared for our lives.

Most of the violence in Oakland is concentrated in West and East Oakland (“Violent Crimes in Alameda County: A Fact Sheet,” 2010). When prompted to share about an unsafe space, LaShay recounts a time when she was visiting her boyfriend in “The Bottoms” neighborhood in West Oakland. “The Bottoms” or “The Lower Bottoms” got its nickname when the Cypress Freeway was built as part of urban renewal efforts, slicing West Oakland in two (Douglas, 2004). This neighborhood struggles with issues of crime, gang activity, environmental toxins, and emerging gentrification (Stuhldreher, 2007). As an East Oakland native, LaShay suggests that she cannot use the same analysis of risk perceptions in a neighborhood different from her own. She fears for her safety in another part of the city.

Eighteen-year-old Micah, an African American female, identifies the “drama” occurring in East Oakland from High Street eastward. She shares,

Most of the drama happens from High [Street] on [east]. The 20s and 30s are more peaceful—closer to Downtown and the Lake [Merritt]. High is close to the high school—Fremont—there’s a lot of drama there.

Micah identifies Fremont High School as a geographic concentration of a lot of the “drama” in East Oakland. She contrasts this “drama” with the more peaceful areas from 20th Avenue eastward to 39th Avenue. However, 13-year-old Javier, a Latino male, experiences this same area as unsafe. He comments,

What they be callin’ the “Murder Dubs” but it’s still the 20s and 30s. I don’t wanna go there and be wearin’ like a gang color and they’re gonna mistake me.

The contradictions of how two youth perceive or experience safety and violence in the “20s and 30s,” seem to fall along ethnic, gender, and perhaps age lines. According to homicide investigators in Oakland, the Latino gangs in East and West Oakland are much more formal and place a greater value on “pride,” “colors,” and “turf” than the Black gangs there (Wilson & Riley, 2004). Consequently, an African American female deems the “20s and 30s” as safe and peaceful, yet a Latino male fears being mistaken for a gang member within this same space, and therefore his movement throughout this space is more restricted.

Some youth identify specific businesses and spaces within neighborhoods that attract violence. When asked to describe his neighborhood, 18-year-old Joshua, an African American male, shares,

Joshua feels that the liquor store in his neighborhood on 76th avenue attracts a group of people who are unsafe and who “be wilin’ out” or acting wild. By sharing that “they are cool though,” he suggests that he has either developed some sort of rapport with these people or developed a practice of navigating near the liquor store in a safe manner.

In addition to identifying unsafe spaces, some youth or their families move to areas within East Oakland that they deem as safer. Daniela, an 18-year-old African American female, and her family moved in an attempt to get her “Granny” out of an unsafe area. She comments,

And we had to move my Granny up there [High Street and MacArthur Boulevard] because we were staying on 81st and Rudsdale—that’s where I’m from—and it got hectic over there. Like, just a lot of stuff happening so we moved her to High Street and um, yeah. We had been everywhere in Oakland, and basically, it’s the same old thing anywhere you go. New faces, but the same thing repeats itself over and over, and all you can do to prevent that is to keep yourself as far away as possible.

Daniela and her family moved from a “hectic” neighborhood in “Deep East Oakland” (70th Avenue and on, eastward) to a less hectic neighborhood further west. This type of within-city spatial mobility is different from the out-migration practices from urban neighborhoods to suburban ones that some researchers document (Chaskin, 1997; Fullilove, 2004; Ginwright & Akom, 2007; Sides, 2003). Daniela and her family reduce their exposure to violence by moving within East Oakland.

Further eastward, José, a 19-year-old, Latino male, identifies 105th Avenue as an unsafe space where a lot of violent activity occurs. He shares,

A not-safe spot would be standing, driving in a car, walking, all down 105th. There’s been drive-bys, there’ve been assaults, aggravated assaults, all that down that street, car theft, burglary, killings, all kinds of crime down 105th.

José identifies the multiple and varied types of violence that occurs on 105th Avenue. The 105th Avenue borders a more isolated part of East Oakland, demarcated by the remaining industries in the area, railroad tracks, and the Sobrante Park neighborhoods that has contended with high rates of violence. José deems the whole space as unsafe.

“I’m Not Just Runnin the Streets”: Staying Preoccupied

The youth expressed the need to keep busy, through involvement in activities before, during, and after school that are productive and positive, as a strategy to stay safe. It appears that too much idle time may lead to temptation and risky behaviors, and a busier schedule—through school and activities at EOYDC—is the safer alternative. Twelve-year-old Naima talks about her involvement with EOYDC:

And here there’s like somewhere you can come and be surrounded by good people and not like always violence.

With the various programming and employment opportunities at EOYDC, youth participants are kept occupied. Youth see their involvement in EOYDC as a positive alternative to being bored, and they see EOYDC as a safe space in a neighborhood which they otherwise experience as unsafe. In this way, EOYDC—the physical building and the people, relationships, and activities therein—serves as an intervention for neighborhood violence.

Youth also keep busy by going to school, including the time it takes to travel to the school campus and the various school-related activities in which they are involved. Nineteen-year-old Darius talks about how he “stayed away from” the dangers of his neighborhoods by going to school:

I don’t know if I stayed safe, I just know I stayed away from it for a while, as long as I could. You know with school for me 8[a.m.] to 3[p.m.] . . . football practice for me after school til like 6[p.m.], and then riding BART or getting a ride from somebody. So, I stayed away from it for like five days. I stayed away from it, but I was still in it, you know what I’m sayin’. Like I still knew what was going on, but I just felt like for me, like okay “if I go to St. Mary’s [High School], I can stay away from it, but if I go to Oakland High, like I’m still around it.” And I’m not saying people who go to Oakland High can’t beat it, I’m just sayin’ that sometimes it’s just good to get away from it, like there’s other options.

Darius keeps busy through a full day attending a parochial school in a neighboring city and through participating in sports. He contrasts this with still being “in it” if he went to his neighborhood public school and is thankful for the time to “get away.” Similarly, LaShay also stays safe by going to school. She shares,

I actually stay safe by going to school, staying in school, coming to work, basically having a full schedule, to where I’m not just runnin’ the streets. If you’re out just runnin’ the streets then yeah, you’re trying to look for trouble. You see, they’re people just looking for someone. They do hit and runs. They go “just shoot that person,” and you’re in the gang. So if you’re in the streets, then you’re looking for trouble. But if you’re actually doing something with yourself, even if you gotta be in the house cleaning up, you don’t need to be just sitting in the street. Why are you in the streets at midnight? You’re looking for something.

LaShay sees going to school and working at EOYDC as the safer and more productive alternative to “runnin’ the streets.” She actually views those who are idle or who spend their time “runnin’ the streets” as looking for trouble in which to engage.

“My Friends Don’t Get Involved in That”: Positive Peer-Seeking

Young people in violent neighborhoods might feel the obligatory tug that their friendships require, which might put them in danger of defending themselves and their friends if a conflict arises. Daniela reflects on a time when she was involved in more negative activities and consequently had to relationally isolate herself instead:

And being in Oakland, woo it does that to you. Because of the environment that you’re around. Because of the people you surround yourself with. You got the proper females and males, and then you got the ghetto females and males. And I surrounded myself with the negative. I was raised in the hood, basically. But as the negative things were coming my way, I still had positive and I was coming out here [EOYDC] doing what I had to do, but still going out there with a better point of view of certain things that I was doing that wasn’t right.

Much like the readily identified fighters and the more reluctant fighters in N. Jones’ (2009) study, Daniela makes the distinction between the “proper” young women and men and the “ghetto” young women and men that she encounters in East Oakland. She suggests that her involvement in activities at EOYDC caused her to be more self-reflective of the types of people with whom she surrounded herself. Young people come to EOYDC because of different reasons and for different purposes. Daniela was first introduced to EOYDC as an option of a community service site per the terms of her probation. As a volunteer, she became introduced to the young women’s group, G.E.D. program, and other programmatic offerings at EOYDC. She also gained exposure to more “positive” peers and role models at EOYDC that caused her to re-evaluate her more “negative” relationships that she had prior to her arrest.

Nineteen-year-old Kareem, an African American male, was involved in a gang previously. He found out about EOYDC from his high school counselor. The sense of responsibility and accountability that he encountered at EOYDC allowed him to see himself as a leader in a new light. The opportunities to mentor younger children and earn an income keep him involved with EOYDC. He shares,

My father always told me, and numerous people always told me, “Hang around people that do what you like to do.” And that’s the hardest thing to find. That might sound selfish, but it’s beneficial. I learned that the hard way. Man, I learned that the very, very hard way.

Kareem describes “the hard way” as consequences of and relationships in the gang. Like Daniela, he is exposed to more positive peers through his involvement with EOYDC.

Although 16-year-old Aja, an African American female, is not involved in a gang, she has friends who are. In the following excerpt, she shares how she experiences these relationships:

My unsafe place is a gang. I stay away because my personality won’t let me go. I stay away because I have seen too many people that are gone now because of this place. People I have sat in class with spoken and held conversations. People that I have breathed the same air with. My unsafe place is a gang. I stay away from this place because my best friend has called me too many times crying, telling me that another person is shot and gone. Gone because they were at this unsafe place.

Aja has to cope with losing friends and classmates to neighborhood violence. She is learning to navigate safety, and emotional coping was by relationally isolating herself.

Other youth in our study employ a violence management strategy of associating themselves with friends in their neighborhoods whom they deem as positive. When asked how he stays safe in his neighborhood, José shares,

Like the friends that I hang out with on a day-to-day basis, they don’t [gang]bang, they’re not affiliated, they’re just regular people.

Several of the youth commented on the active steps that they take to associate with positive people, particularly regarding their peer groups. In this excerpt, José consciously does not hang out with people that are in gangs. Instead, he describes his friends as “just regular.” Similarly, Douglas, an 18-year-old African American male, surrounds himself with positive peers. He remarks,

I feel like I stay safe by the friends I’m around. My friends who don’t get involved in that, just like how I don’t . . . Not being out late as much, because not too much good stuff goes on at nighttime. And just keeping my nose clean, just staying away from that type of stuff because it doesn’t lead to anything good. Like, it’s not putting no money in my pocket, it’s not giving me a diploma, it’s not getting me a job, so why be around it?

In addition to not staying out late at night, and not getting involved in unproductive or illegal activities, Douglas associates with friends who also are not “involved.”