Code of the Street Paperback by Elijah Anderson

Product Details

• Publisher: WW Norton (2000-10-03)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 352 pages
• ISBN-13: 9780393320787
• Item Weight: 394.63 grams
• Dimensions: 20.93 x 13.77 x 2.08 cm

Unsparing and important. . . . An informative, clearheaded and sobering book.—Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post (1999 Critic's Choice)

Inner-city black America is often stereotyped as a place of random violence, but in fact, violence in the inner city is regulated through an informal but well-known code of the street. This unwritten set of rules—based largely on an individual's ability to command respect—is a powerful and pervasive form of etiquette, governing the way in which people learn to negotiate public spaces. Elijah Anderson's incisive book delineates the code and examines it as a response to the lack of jobs that pay a living wage, to the stigma of race, to rampant drug use, to alienation and lack of hope.

About the Author

Elijah Anderson is the Sterling Professor of Sociology and of Black Studies at Yale University. In recognition of his pioneering research, he was awarded the prestigious Stockholm Prize in the field of Criminology in 2021 and the American Society of Criminology’s Edwin H. Sutherland Award in 2025.