Hypothesis Testing Paper (ATTN KIM WOODS)

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When it comes to gun violence in the United States, there are some patterns that have emerged that are shaped by race, according to an analysis by the Washington Post .

A study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that African-Americans are likelier to be shot by another person and that white Americans are more likely to shoot themselves.

The data revealed that a white person is five times as likely to commit suicide with a gun as to be shot with a gun. On the other hand, for every Black American who uses a gun to commit suicide, five are killed by other people with guns.

The analysis also reveals that gun violence in urban areas most often results in homicide and that suicide by firearms is more common in rural areas of the country. It also said that the states with the most guns per capita, like Montana and Wyoming, are most likely to have higher suicide rates.

The analysis also revealed that there are strong differences in views regarding gun control by race. African-Americans - 75 percent of those surveyed - are more likely to support stringent gun control measures. That compares with about 50 percent of white respondents.

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Gun violence determined by race. (2013, Apr). The Jacksonville Free Press Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1344972610?accountid=458

URBAN PERSPECTIVE * LARRY AUBRY

Violence exists in all communities throughout the world. However, violence among Blacks is often a manifestation of self-hate, spawned and nurtured by a racist society. Usually, the Black community responds with episodic, not sustained outrage to exceptionally brutal or sensational violence - especially when the victims are young, as in the killing of 13-year-old Devon Brown by LAPD officers in 2005 and last year's murder of Trayvon Martin. Sadly. violence among Blacks themselves in some communities has become a terrible, repugnant norm bolstered by seeming indifference, even in neighborhoods most often victimized.

One of the most poignant and disturbing indicators of violence's pernicious fallout is the steely. on-the surface nonchalance of many Black children and young adults towards the pain and suffering of others. The wrenching phenomenon of kids staring, seemingly without emotion or apparent concern, at someone wounded or killed in their neighborhood, is almost impossible to describe. These youngsters, through no fault of their own, grow up in a culture that damages their capacity for caring and dims any hope for the future.

The antecedents of violence are well known, yet many Blacks have a tendency to deny or minimize this largely because slavery's devastating legacy blurs acknowledging its continuing impact in the Black community. Racism and psycho-social conditioning go hand-in-hand, forming the basis of self-hate so evident in poor young Black males. And there is still broad denial among the Black middle class of the significance of their conditioned subservience too. Nonetheless, despite suffering untold atrocities. Blacks are among the world's most resilient people.

America has always touted materialism and individualism which are integral components of racism and Blacks and all non-whites' have always been considered less human than Europeans in this country.

Barriers to changing Blacks' self-deprecating mindsets and behavior are many and the following examples are illustrative, not exhaustive.

Having internalized America's values, many Blacks are reluctant to challenge the powers that be. for them, doing so is tantamount to challenging themselves because they no longer have alternative values to those of Europeans. Hence, Blacks' ambivalence and defensiveness about ridding themselves of systemically ingrained second-class status.

Other manifestations of the "less than white" syndrome, in addition to previously mentioned self-hate and low esteem, include a tendency to minimize others' rights and humanity; an inability and/or unwillingness to forcefully challenge oppressive conditions or the oppressor; Black students' "dysfunctional" behavior; public policy that codifies injustice and, of course, injustice itself based on race. Additionally. Black leadership' self-serving individualistic, materialistic behavior; public education that denigrates rather than embraces or supports Black children in particular; and the chasm between middle-class and poorer Blacks that has become a major obstacle in the continuing struggle for equity and justice.

Most people, including the Black middle-class know, at least intellectually, that in America, race matters. However, fearing loss of material gains, the middle-class steadfastly acts as though major political and economic barriers are no longer as significant as in the past and have effectively removed themselves from the continuing struggle for civil and human rights. Perhaps they need to be reminded that neither poverty nor any shade of Black has ever been of any real concern to the public or private power elite in America.

Can violence be eliminated? In an absolute sense, of course not, but reducing the incidence of violence, especially among Blacks is not only possible but vitally necessary.

New violence-reduction strategies must include partnerships among the gamut of local communities, parents, schools, law enforcement, government agencies, politicians and perhaps, most important, Black leaders themselves. Common ground has to be clearly defined and accountability built into efforts for actual sustainable change.

Parents and local communities need solid information and decisionmaking authority in order to participate as equals in important matters that affect their lives. New leadership models should also include a reassessment of values and strategies with a strong emphasis on leadership development that furthers the goals, objectives, and aspirations of particular groups and communities. Health services also have a significant bearing on violence among Blacks. (Hopefully, lessons were learned from the demise of Los Angeles' Martin Luther King Hospital and honest dealings and accountability at the ' new" MLK Hospital and that its leadership will work collaboratively with residents and leaders in the surrounding community, (SPA 6) to guarantee community-centered, quality health services.)

Violence among poor Blacks especially, is the culmination of prolonged oppression and a pervasive lack of vision and hopelessness evidenced by understandable anger and distrust. Typically, the Black community responds to high profile cases of unwarranted violence and brutality with episodic, not sustainable outrage. Altering the scope of violence among Blacks requires new thinking, new behavior and collaboration among the various factions designed to create a different reality that proudly and unapologetically benefits the entire Black community

AuthorAffiliation

Larry Aubry can be contacted at e-mail Laubry@ att.net

Aubry, L. (2013, Dec). BLACK VIOLENCE SHOULD NEVER BE ACCEPTED AS THE NORM. Sentinel Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1494025286?accountid=458

Elijah Anderson's Code of the Street provides an ethnographic account of a disadvantaged urban environment where residents face poverty and racial residential isolation. For Anderson, joblessness among African-American men deprive youth of positive male role models, creating a context for the "street code" to govern behavior, leading youth to violence. Similarly, a disadvantaged urban setting in which opportunities in legitimate labor markets are lacking fosters an environment where youth may seek illicit markets fora means of economic support. Drawing on Anderson's work, we assess the availability of male role models (older, employed black males) and the concentration of urban disadvantage on black juvenile drug sales and violent arrests across multiple cities in 2000. We find Anderson's concerns over the removal of traditional role models as a result of rising disadvantage in a Philadelphia community to be generalized to large urban areas. Specifically, we find that the presence of traditional role models reduces aggravated assaults by youth, but male role models are unable to reduce the economic lure of drug sales for black urban youth in disadvantaged environments. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

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Headnote

In the Code of the Street, Anderson (1999) shows how urban life can be shaped by neighborhood disadvantage and racial inequality. In segregated areas with limited economic opportunities, he portrays families as "decent" and "street and describes how individuals move in and out of codes of conduct. One central feature distinguishing "decent" from "street" families is the presence of "decent dads" in the neighborhood. These men are typically employed family men who serve as role models to their children and local youth in the community as a whole.

As identified by Anderson, male role models play a crucial function in the urban community. However, over the past several decades, the removal of manufacturing jobs has resulted in a disproportionate number of unemployed black males in large cities. Additionally, the decrease in legitimate job opportunities occurred simultaneously with the rise in urban poverty and racial segregation, as well as the growth in urban drug markets beginning in the mid 1980s. Taken together, these life circumstances lead some youth to adopt a street code that requires the use of violence (see Brezina, Agnew, Cullen, & Wright, 2004; McNulty & Bellair, 2003; Stewart & Simons, 2006). Moreover, as legitimate employment opportunities decline, younger generations are lured by the earnings prospects of the illicit drug trade. Anderson writes:

Deindustrialization and the growth of the global economy have led to a steady loss of the unskilled and semiskilled manufacturing jobs that, with mixed results, had sustained the urban working class since the start of the industrial revolutions. At the same time "welfare reform" has led to a much weakened social safety net. For the most desperate people, many of whom are not effectively adjusting to these changes ... the underground economy of drugs and crime often emerges to pick up the slack. (1999, p. 108)

In this paper, we explore the potential relationship between concentrated disadvantage, the presence of traditional male role models, and African American juvenile drug sales and violent arrests within the urban context. Specifically, our research has two important aims. First, we seek to assess whether Anderson's concept of "decent dads" or traditional male role models serve as an avenue for economic support and social control in the urban environment, thus reducing the level of black youths' involvement in aggravated assaults and drug sales. Just as family disruption is a critical concept to social disorganization theory (Sampson & Groves, 1989), reflecting the breakdown in community social control that results in higher urban crime rates, we propose traditional male role models may serve to buffer the street code for black youth, reducing violence and the lure of the drug trade. Secondly, we attempt to address the generality of his claims by moving beyond the areas Anderson studied directly (see Brezina et al., 2004 for arguments), and place this discussion within the larger macro-level framework of concentrated disadvantage and urban crime. Just as numerous studies have established the link between Anderson's ethnographic work and juvenile violence at the individual level using large, national samples (Brezina et al., 2004; Kubrin & Weitzer, 2003; McNulty 8c Bellair, 2003; Stewart & Simons, 2006), we explore his arguments in a city-level study. ' By doing so, this study brings to light the structural dimensions of Anderson's work of how lives are shaped by social structural elements of economic disadvantage, illicit drug economies, and distressed households.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

The trend toward poverty concentration in urban areas has been described in detail by Wilson (1987) in The Truly Disadvantaged. For Wilson, the concentration of poverty and the rise in joblessness resulted from an industrial shift away from manufacturing toward a more administrative, service-based industry. That is, the removal of manufacturing jobs left African Americans particularly vulnerable to growing levels of poverty and racial isolation, as they were more dependent on lowskilled and manufacturing industries for employment than were other racial groups (see Kasarda 1 983; Wilson & Wu, 1 993). The changes in the urban political economy and the rise in concentrated poverty in many African American communities have been well documented in the literature (Kasarda, 1992; Tienda 8c Lii, 1987; Wilson, 1987; 1996).

Additionally, racial residential segregation also played a central role (Massey & Eggers, 1990; Massey, Gross, & Eggers, 1991). Whites' avoidance of moving into African American neighborhoods and the exclusion of African Americans from white neighborhoods only heightened the disadvantages blacks faced in urban areas (Massey, Gross, & Shibuya, 1994). Moreover, Massey and his colleagues demonstrated how racial residential segregation patterns influence poverty levels differently by race, providing evidence that residential segregation heightened urban disadvantages among African Americans more than any other race or ethnic group (Massey & Denton, 1994). Researchers have linked these structural conditions to urban violence. For example, Shihadeh and Flynn ( 1 996) found the spatial isolation of urban blacks from whites is related to African American violence, particularly homicide and robbery.

These works document how African Americans are concentrated in poor urban areas, where levels of segregation and economic disadvantage (e.g., joblessness and poverty) place barriers to racial integration. Deindustrialization and racial segregation expose African Americans to greater levels of disadvantage than poor whites or other minority groups, and further contributes to the decline in schools, community organizations, and families (Anderson, 1990; Sampson & Wilson 1995; Wilson, 1996). The families in these disadvantaged environments were of particular interest to Sampson (1987) and Sampson and Groves (1989), who first conceptualized family disruption as a construct within the social disorganization framework. Following their lead, many studies have included indicators of family disruption in research on urban violence (Almgren, Guest, Immerwahl, & Spittel, 1998; Krivo & Peterson, 1996; Parker & McCaIl, 1999; see also Pratt & Cullen, 2005 for a review of macro-level studies).

In addition to the family constructs, researchers have examined how subcultural value systems form in response to urban disadvantage, contributing to violence (See Brunson & Steward, 2006; Kubrin, 2005; Sampson & Bean, 2006; Sampson & Wilson, 1995). Ethnographic work has shown that subcultural value systems conducive to crime emerge in structurally disadvantaged communities (Anderson, 1999; Fagan & Wilkinson, Horowitz, 1983; 1998; Kubrin & Weitzer, 2003). Anderson (1999) documents a "street code" that shapes the behavior of residents within the community, providing a rationale for using aggression and violence. Recent studies have examined criminal behavior in response to invoking street-cultural codes (Brezina et al, 2004; Brunson & Stewart, 2006; Fagan & Wilkinson, 1998; Kubrin & Weitzer, 2003; Stewart & Simons, 2006), offering results consistent with Anderson's (1999) work. For instance, Brezina et al. (2004) found that disadvantaged urban youth who hold beliefs that are consistent with the "code of the street" are significantly more likely to engage in violence. Similarly, Stewart and Simons (2006) show that "street" families socialize their children to conform to the code of the street and that "decent" families utilize informal social control mechanisms to limit their children's involvement in crime and violence. Similarly, Wilkinson's (2003) work on African American and Latino youth ties adults directly to the breakdown of social control within urban communities. Wilkinson states that, "Neighborhood adults assume the role of mentor for many youths whether they realize it or not" (63).

In sum, researchers have assessed the applicability of Anderson's work concerning the family and subcultural values, finding that family members and other adults in the inner city are sources of subcultural values, but also serve as role models to youth, influencing the level of social control in these areas. In this way, by providing evidence of the generality of Anderson's claims at the individual level, these studies lay the groundwork for this investigation at the macro-level. Additionally, the applicability of Anderson's portrayal of traditional role models (or decent dads) as a feature of urban areas has not received attention. We attempt to fill this void by offering an empirical test of the relationship between the availability of traditional male role models (i.e., decent dads) and African American juvenile's involvement in drug sales and violent behaviors. A quick review of Anderson's discussion of "decent" versus "street" categories makes lucid the influence of black male role models on youth in urban areas.

TRADITIONAL MALE ROLE MODELS

Capturing the influence of urban disadvantage on families, Anderson characterizes "street" and "decent" families, labels he claims are often used by the residents themselves. His discussion of "decent" and "street" families offers, "two contrasting conceptual categories" (Anderson 1999, p. 35). "Street" families are families that typically have a lack of consideration for other people and a superficial sense of family and community. As frustrations mount over bills, food, and the like, parents find it difficult to cope with the physical and emotional demands of parenthood, resulting in children who lack curfews, supervision and resources, with some realizing that they must "fend for themselves" (Anderson, 1999, p. 49). Given the anger, verbal disputes, and physical aggression within the street-oriented home, children are victimized and learn to fight at an early age.

In contrast, "decent" families almost always have, "hope for the future" (Anderson, 1999, p. 37). This hope means that decent families place emphasis on saving money, working hard, and raising children in an effort to make something out of themselves. Because they identify with mainstream values, decent families are more likely to participate in jobs, schools, churches and other types of institutions. And while parenthood within disadvantaged areas is challenging, this context requires parents to be very strict with their children. For example, children are typically provided with money and material goods so that they are, "less tempted to turn to the drug trade or other aspects of the underground economy for money" (Anderson, 1999, p. 42). Key to Anderson's depiction of decent families is the "decent daddy" who is a "certain kind of man" (Anderson, 1999, p. 180), in that he serves as a role model and a potential source of jobs for urban youth. Decent dads are described as older, African American males with distinguishable characteristics - steady employment, community responsibility, and responsibilities as a father and husband. This "decent" dad role is not only played in his own household but in the larger African American community as well.

Here we learn more about how the family in the urban context can influence informal social control levels, which help shield urban youth from subcultural values that promote violence and illicit behavior. Importantly, this discussion of the family is distinct from the ways it has been conceptualized in previous macro-level literature. For example, Anderson brings the presence of traditional role models as a structural feature in urban areas to the attention of researchers; a construct that is conceptually distinct from family disruption. Specifically Anderson's depiction of decent dads highlights the importance of older, responsible African American males in the urban community. Yet Anderson acknowledges that disadvantage and segregation contributed to the lack of traditional male role models in urban areas as labor market participation declined. That is, urban disadvantage greatly undermined "decent dads." Moreover, the proliferation of the drug economy is related to the code of the street, whereby the code is an adaptation to extreme disadvantage and cultural alienation faced by many young African Americans (Anderson, 1999; Ousey & Lee, 2004). The code emphasizes the importance of economic success as one way to establish self-image and to gain respect (Kubrin, 2005). To test this claim, we hypothesize that an increase in the access to traditional role models will decrease drug sales and violent arrests among African- American juveniles.

DATA AND METHODS

The unit of analysis is U.S. cities with a population of 100,000 residents or more in the year 2000 that reported complete data (or 12 months of arrest statistics) on our dependent variables. This sampling criterion resulted in 1 99 cases in our sample. There are three major sources of data for this research. For the dependent variables, the data are Uniform Crime Report arrest counts obtained from Chilton and Weber (2000). The Uniform Crime Report also serves as the source of information on the number of sworn police officers in each city circa 2000 as well as the total offense index. For the predictors, the 2000 Census of Population: Social and Economic Characteristics (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2001) is the primary data source. The third source of data is the Bureau of Justice Statistics' Census of State and Federal Adult Correctional Facilities (2000), which serves as our primary source of information concerning race-specific incarceration.

DEPENDENT VARIABLES

This study utilizes African American juvenile arrests based on three years of complete data circa 2000 (2000, 200 1 , and 2002 specifically). The use of three years of data (as compared to only one year) allows us to account for year-to-year fluctuations in arrest statistics, essentially smoothing out the data. There are two dependent variables involving African American juvenile arrests: drug sales arrests and aggravated assault. The first dependent variable (drug sales arrests) takes into account the number of African American juvenile arrests for the sale and/or manufacturing of drugs including opium, cocaine and other derivatives (such as morphine and heroin), marijuana, and synthetic narcotics (such as Demerol and Methadone). The second dependent variable is the number of incidents involving aggravated assault (violence).

We acknowledge a debate surrounding the use of drug arrest measures. Some researchers have argued that the number of drug arrests reflects enforcement patterns or official responses to crime (see Mosher, 2001; Quinney, 1979), while others state that drug arrests are indicators of actual drug behavior particularly at the city level (Cohen, Felson, & Land, 1980; Ousey & Lee, 2004; Rosenfeld & Decker, 1999). We are not able to empirically address this debate here, but agree with others about the utility of city-level drug arrest data (Baumer, Lauritsen, Rosenfeld, & Wright, 1998; Ousey & Lee, 2002, 2004; Rosenfeld & Decker, 1999). That is, prior research has reported high internal reliability among different data sources (e.g., ADAM arrest statistics), showing that these data sources yield similar estimates of drug use when compared to drug arrests for cities (Baumer et al., 1998; Rosenfeld & Decker, 1999; Warner & Coomer, 2003). Despite limitations, city-level drug arrests are useful when exploring the amount of drug activity in a given area. As an additional precaution, we offer the police officer rate as a control measure in our models.

INDEPENDENT VARIABLES

Four structural measures are included to gauge the concentration of black disadvantage in urban areas. The measures include: poverty (percentage of black persons living below the poverty level), income inequality (via the Gini Index of Black Income Concentration, Index can range from 0 - representing perfect equality - to 1, representing perfect inequality), single parent homes (percentage of black children aged 18 year or less not living with both parents), and racial residential segregation (measured with the Index of Dissimilarity, Index measures 0 to 1 . The closer to 1 , the more segregated the groups are). A measure of racial inequality is also included in this study to account for the level of economic disparities between whites and blacks. Racial inequality is measured by the ratio of white to black unemployment rate (the higher the ratio, the less racial inequality). Because previous studies tend to find these indicators to be highly collinear, we employ principal components analysis to address this methodological issue and discuss the results in the analysis section to follow.

To capture Anderson's conceptual ideas about traditional role models and/or "decent dads" at the macro level, we offer two measures in this study. The first indicator is computed as the number of African American males aged 35 and older who are currently married, divided by the total African American male population aged 1 5 or older. The second indicator captures the employment status of older African American males. Specifically this measure is computed as the number of African American males employed in the labor force between the ages of 35 to 64 years divided by the total number of African American males aged 16 or older. We restricted the measures to include only males aged 35 and older in an effort to capture the presence of "old heads," or older black males in the urban area who could serve as a source of social and economic support for youth.

Finally, control measures include the percentage of the population with Hispanic origin (% Hispanic), a dummy code for region (cities located in the southern region are coded as one and all other cities are coded as zero), residential mobility (operationalized as the percentage of residents that reported they were not living in the same residence for the previous five years) and a measure of police force size (the number of sworn police officers (excludes civilians) in each city in 2000 per 100,000 population).2 The incarceration measure is the state-level ratio of black to white incarcerated persons in correctional facilities in 2000. This measure was included in the study in an effort to capture the potential for negative outcomes as a result of the greater dependency on incarceration in urban cities (see Rose & Clear, 1998).

Previous studies reveal that these predictor variables, particularly those associated with urban disadvantage, are highly correlated (see McNulty & Bellair, 2003; Parker & McCaIl, 1999), which led us to utilize factor analysis (see Land, McCaIl, & Cohen, 1990 for details). As shown in Table 1, we combine the measures indicative of disadvantage into a composite index called concentrated disadvantage index. Specifically, this index includes two race-specific measures of economic dislocation (i.e., black poverty and black income inequality), racial residential segregation, and the measure of single parent homes. A second composite index shows the factor loadings for the two measures of traditional role models by combining the percentage of married males who are aged 35 and older with the percentage of employed African American males who are between the ages of 35 and 64 years of age. Combining these two indicators into one component reflects Anderson's conceptual arguments and this index is referred to as the traditional role model index.3 A third measure - racial inequality - was included in the factor analysis, but it did not load with any of the other indicators. Thus this measure remains a stand-alone construct in the regression models.

After the above indices were computed, we re-examined the predictor variables for evidence of collinearity and partialling among the regressors, and performed collinearity diagnostics in a series of regression analyses to obtain variance inflation factors (VIFs). None of the VIFs associated with the parameter estimates exceed a value of 4.0, a baseline value commonly used in studies to indicate collinearity. In fact, all of our VIFs were below 3.0 (i.e., highest being 2.582). Descriptive statistical information for our dependent and independent measures is provided in the Appendix.

RESULTS

Our initial examination of the dependent variables revealed a skewed distribution. One way to address a non-normal distribution on the dependent variables is to compute aggregated rates and then transform the rates to their natural logarithm form for use in ordinary least squares regression analysis. However, scholars have recently questioned the appropriateness of this method and offered Poisson-based regression as a reliable alternative (Osgood, 2000; Osgood & Chambers, 2000). We use Poisson-based regression in our study, and given an alpha test result that reveals over-dispersion in these data, we opt for the negative binomial variant of Poisson regression (Greene, 1996). Additionally, we convert the African American juvenile arrests counts into the equivalent of a rate by including the logged young African American population size (all black persons 17 years of age or younger) variable as an exposure variable in the model and constraining the coefficient to equal 1 (Osgood, 2000). Because the 3-year sum of black juvenile arrest counts are used as the dependent variable, prior to transforming the target population to its natural log, the population figure is multiplied by a factor of 3 to match the counts used in the dependent variable (see Messner, Baller, & Zevenbergen, 2005; and Villarreal, 2004 for details about this approach).

The results from the negative binomial regression estimation for our two models are displayed in Table 2. The maximum likelihood r-square values are not typically reported by Poisson-based models so we use the "fitstat" command in STATA and report the r-square values in the table (Lee & Ousey, 200 1 ; Long, 1 997; Osgood, 2000). Because we are mainly interested in the influence of the concentrated disadvantage and traditional role model indices on the African American juvenile arrest levels for drug sales and violence (aggravated assaults specifically), our discussion of the results will focus on these findings. The results will also include an interpretation whereby we multiply the coefficient by a value of exp (bxk) (see Osgood, 2000).

We estimate the impact of the concentration of black disadvantage on the use of social control (via arrests) against black juveniles within the urban context. This index documents the combined influence of racial residential segregation with forms of black economic disadvantage to signify the degree to which African Americans occupy separate economic and spatial niches in American cities. Symptomatic of these high levels of concentrated disadvantage, African Americans typically find that they are vulnerable to economic dislocation (e.g., joblessness), formal social control, and informal social control such as real estate steering (see Ondrich, Ross, & Yinger, 2003). Given this, we expect that black concentrated disadvantage will have a positive impact on African American juvenile drug sales and violent arrests.

As shown in Table 2, we find that concentrated disadvantage does not yield a statistically significant effect on youth violence but it has a positive impact on drug sales arrests of African American juveniles. That is, a standard deviation increase in the concentrated disadvantage index is associated with an 81% increase in African American juvenile drug sales arrests (exp [.041 ? 14.44] = 1.8077). This finding supports previous studies that suggest drug sales reflect a growing informal economy in urban cities - an economy that provides an alternative source of income (Cork, 1999; Fagan, 1992; Johnson, Williams, Dei, & Sanabria, 1990) when unskilled and semi-skilled jobs are increasingly unavailable (Kasarda, 1992; Wilson, 1987). For example, Fowles and Merva (1996) suggest that there has been a significant rise in wage inequality over time and that young urban males have experienced considerable job loss. Given the structural constraints and conditions associated with racial isolation and economic inequality, they argue that a rational response of young males, "would be to substitute risky but more lucrative illegitimate activities for legitimate activities, namely, the buying and selling of illegal drugs" (Fowles & Merva, 1996, p. 175). While we find that the concentration of urban disadvantage among blacks contributes to drug sales arrests, this construct does not have a statistically significant influence on violent arrests among African American juveniles, which is consistent with other research on black juvenile violence (Sampson, 1987; Shihadeh& Steffensmeier, 1994).

Next we assess the removal of traditional role models from the urban environment and the potential impact this construct has on socializing African American youth away from violence and the drug trade. We offer a macro-level construct of traditional role models in this study and hypothesize that as the availability of these role models increases, the arrests of African American juveniles for violence and drug sales will decline. In partial support of Anderson's work, we find empirical evidence of these expectations regarding black youth involvement in aggravated assaults. Specifically, we find that one standard deviation increase in the availability of black male role models leads to an approximate 24% reduction in aggravated assaults involving African American youth (exp [-.029 ? 9.31]= 0. 7634). As suggested by Anderson, the roles of older black males in the community proves to be a contributing factor in urban life, reducing violence among African American juveniles.4

Yet we find contradictory evidence in the case of drug sales. That is, we find a positive relationship between traditional role models and drug sales arrests among African American juveniles, wherein a standard deviation increase in the traditional role model is associated with a 37% increase in African American juvenile arrests for drug sales (exp [.034 ? 9.31]= 1.3724). While this finding could represent an increase in opportunities for drug sales that results from high levels of concentrated disadvantage and joblessness, another caveat discussed by Anderson is the difficulty men experience being "decent dads" in disadvantaged areas. Arguing that men sometimes play a distorted version of the role, Anderson writes that many "decent" dads have limited experience with the role and, "they are not at all hesitant to play the role poorly" (Anderson, 1 999, p. 1 85). Specifically, given that many of these men may be employed in work with low pay and little job security, men who attempt to take on these roles find that they are only able to perform a narrow aspect of it. As Anderson suggests, older black males in the community and/or "decent" dads are unable to provide youth with the money and resources they need to make youth, "less tempted to turn to drug trade or other aspects of the underground economy for money" (Anderson, 1999, p. 42). In essence, young people may turn to illegal drug sales as a means to secure financial resources (see Benoit, Randolph, Dunlap, & Johnson, 2003; Johnson et al., 1990).

We estimate the impact of racial inequality on African American juvenile arrest rates by incorporating a ratio measure of the degree of racial disparities in unemployment in urban cities. This particular indicator allows us to capture economic disparities between blacks and whites in terms of employment levels (Jacobs, & Wood, 1999; Olzak, 1990). Because higher scores on ratio indicators indicate less racial inequality, an inverse relationship is expected in our models. In Table 2, we find that racial inequality has a statistically significant, inverse affect on African American juvenile arrests for drug sales. That is, a one standard deviation increase in racial inequality contributes to approximately a 33% decrease in African American juvenile drug sales (exp [-1.5Ox .269] = 0.6679). In the youth violence model, racial inequality does not yield a significant effect, which is consistent with other studies investigating adult arrest rates (Eitle, D'Allessio, & Stolzenberg, 2002; Parker, Stults, 8c Rice, 2005; Stolzenberg, D'Allessio, & Eitle, 2004).

Our research findings also show the influence of the greater use of formal social control on juveniles in urban cities. Few studies examining urban disadvantage and violence have attempted to control for the growing trend toward formal social control in these areas, even though conservative crime control policies have lead to higher concentrations of police in urban areas (see Jackson & Carroll, 1981; Liska, Lawrence, & Benson, 1981), and growing dependency on incarceration over time (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1996; Lynch & Sabol, 1997). We acknowledge the potential influence incarceration has on juveniles, particularly in light of literature that finds that community dependency on formal mechanisms of social control (via incarceration and police presence) weakens organizational and family structures (see Bursik & Grasmick, 1993; Rose & Clear, 1998).

Considering the impact of formal social control in urban areas is also particularly relevant when examining arrest rates, such as those involving drug sales. Austin and Allen (2000) argued that formal social control intensifies when minority groups are perceived as threatening. Lo (2003) has linked the highly publicized crack cocaine phenomenon to the drug scares of the 1 980s and early 1 990s, arguing that government officials responded to this "threat" by increasing police size, which resulted in more arrests and imprisonment (see also Belenko, Fagan, & Chin 1991 ; Liska, 1992; Liska & Chamlin, 1984). Tonry writes:

Any experienced police official could have predicted that policies of wholesale arrests of dealers would sweep up mostly young minority user-dealers in the cities. This is not necessarily because more members of minorities use or sell drugs, but because arrests are easier to make in disorganized inner-city areas where many minority dealers operate than they are in middle- and working-class neighborhoods where the white dealers operate (Tonry, 1995, p. 42).

In Table 2 we find that an increase in police force size has a positive impact on drug sales arrests, but this indicator does not significantly impact violence among African American juveniles. Essentially, a one standard deviation increase in police force size results in a 62% increase in the arrests of African American juveniles for drug sales (exp [.005 ? 96.34]= 1.6188). This finding supports Tonry's (1995) suspicions as stated above. On the other hand, we find no support for the influence of incarceration on juvenile arrest rates in our models.

Finally, we offered a number of control measures in our models to take into account general levels of social disorganization, regional variation, and the level of overall offending in urban cities. As shown in Table 2, many of the constructs did not produce statistically significant findings in our models, with the exception of region. Specifically, African American juvenile arrests for aggravated assaults and drug sales are significantly lower in the southern region as compared to other regions of the U.S. While this finding is inconsistent with previous research, which typically finds higher rates of violence in the south (see Liska & Chamlin, 1984; Parker et al., 2005; Stolzenberg et al., 2004), this finding might be tapping the regional variation in deindustrialization and the dramatic shift in manufacturing jobs in U.S. regions like the Midwest and Northeast (see Wilson, 1987), as compared to the South.

CONCLUSIONS

In this paper we draw upon Anderson's (1999) work in Code of the Street to offer a macro-level exploration of the influence of traditional male role models on the involvement of African American youth in various types of drug- and violencerelated activities in urban cities. Anderson's approach to understanding the lives of inner-city residents provides a descriptive account of how areas characterized by extreme disadvantage, racial segregation, and limited job opportunities influence family formations around "decent" and "street" value systems. Traditional male role models are a central distinguishing feature between "street" and "decent" families, in that these older African American men are usually employed, financially secure men who deserve deference and respect because of the role they play in the family and resources they offer the community at large.

Our goal was to assess whether or not Anderson's conception of "decent" dads reduced the rates of young African Americans in aggravated assaults and the drug trade in urban areas. In doing so, we devised macro-level indicators of traditional male role models that center on the availability of employed, married African American men in urban areas. We found that these older men (via a composite measure we called traditional role models index) reduced the levels of African American juvenile arrest rates for aggravated assaults, which supports Anderson's claims. On the other hand, we found that traditional male role models increased African American juvenile arrests for drug sales. As we searched for explanations for this surprising finding, we acknowledge that whether families are "decent" or "street", both reside in segregated areas of few resources and limited job opportunities. As a result, we argue that these men are likely to face numerous difficulties when performing these roles, particularly with regard to their ability to be a source of jobs for urban youth and/or provide thenchildren with the money and resources necessary to detract them for the lure of the drug trade as a source of money (see Anderson, 1 999). So while traditional male role models have been effective in reducing arrest rates involving violence among African American youth, these men have been significantly limited, and their roles greatly undermined, due to the removal of economic opportunities and the racial inequalities they face in the urban environment.5

Our research also contributes to that literature in assessing the generality of Anderson's claims. While others have pursued research at the individual level, using national samples, we provide a macro-level examination of the relationship between concentrated disadvantage, traditional male role models, and the involvement of urban youth in the drug-trade and violence at the city level. Similar to other studies, our research provides evidence of generality in Anderson's arguments. But our research is not without limitations. By using city level analysis, we constructed measures based on available census data to serve as proxies for Anderson's concepts and we were dependent on official (arrest) accounts to tap the involvement of African American juveniles in drug-related activity. Our dependence on census data for information on traditional role models allowed us to capture older black males as role models, which we found was empirically distinct from other measures currently used in the macrolevel research. But our measures were not able to capture the more complex depictions of "decent" and "street" families discussed in Anderson's work. Nonetheless, this exploratory study finds evidence of the applicability of Anderson's work to the macrolevel study of urban crime, as well as empirical evidence of the positive influence of black males in the urban community.

Footnote

NOTES

1. As stated, assessing the generality of Anderson's claims requires us to move beyond the areas he studied directly as other researchers have done. But there are specific reasons to use cities as the unit of analysis. First, cities are a common unit of analysis in macro-level investigations of concentrated disadvantage, deindustrialization and crime rates (Almgren et al., 1998; Baumer et al., 1998; Krivo & Peterson, 1996; Ousey & Lee, 2002; Parker & McCaIl, 1999). Using cities as the unit in our study, then, increases the comparability with this rather large body of research (see also Pratt and Cullen 2005 for a review of over 200 macro-level studies). Second, we are convinced by scholars that census tracts/ neighborhoods aren't the best choice when generality is being assessed. Scholars acknowledge the weaknesses of community research, particularly that census tracts don't necessarily reflect community boundaries (see Morenoff et al., 2001 and Sampson et al., 1999 for example), although many agree they are the best proxies available in the literature. Osgood and Chambers (2000) remind us that "one of the principal weaknesses of community-level research on delinquency is that most studies focus on variation among neighborhoods within a single metropolitan area." Bursik (1 98,8) also points out weaknesses in this strategy by suggesting that corprnunity studies yield a weak base for generalizing results and it provides no, way of resolving inconsistencies in findings that have developed across studies when different cities are used.

2. We include a measure of the overall offending levels (via index offense rate) in earlier models. Because this indicator was not statistically significant in our models and it is endogenous with our dependent variables, it was not included in the final models.

3. Wilson (1987) also claims that the high rates of unemployment among African American males reduce the economic incentives for African American females to marry, which results from a decline in marriageable men. Wilson and Neckerman (1985) created, "the black male marriage pool index" (MMPI) to capture the availability of employed males relative to African American females in the "marriage market" (see Sampson 1987, p. 356). Because of the similarity between the MMPI measure and our measure of traditional role models, which also taps the availability of employed males in the urban context, we calculate the correlation between these two measures. The bivariate correlation between the two indicators was .191, indicating a low empirical association. This empirical test provides some evidence that our measure of traditional role models is capturing something quite distinct from the MMPI used in previous studies. Finally, in our early multivariate models we estimated the influence of MMPI on black juvenile arrest rates for aggravated assaults and drug sales. Because the MMPI was not statistically significant in the models, this measure is not included in the final results reported here.

4. A reviewer recommended that we test for interaction effects between our measures of traditional male role models and concentrated disadvantage, particularly to see if the traditional role model measure was moderating the impact of concentrated disadvantage in the black juvenile violent arrest model. To determine if mediation occurred, we estimated a model without the traditional role model variable. We then estimated another model to see if the significance of the concentrated disadvantage coefficient was reduced when the traditional role models measure was added to the equation. No evidence of mediation was found. That is, concentrated disadvantage does not yield a statistically significant effect on black youth aggravated assaults rates when the traditional role model measure is absent from the model. When adding the traditional role model measure to the equation, concentrated disadvantage remains nonsignificant. In this way, there is no evidence suggesting that the traditional role model index carries the influence of concentrated disadvantage on rates of black youth assaults in urban areas. Importantly, we did find evidence of moderation between these indicators in some of our other research.

5. An earlier draft of this paper was presented at a drug and alcohol research center, in which two community outreach individuál'á'were in attendance. One outreach person serves as a liaison between the research center and community members for various projects, and the other individual is a pastöf of a local church in a poor, black community, where his ministry serves as a mechanism to help people in this community. Their reaction to the finding concerning a positive relationship between traditional role models and rates of black juveniles involved in drug sales was interesting. Both community outreach members indicated that older males probably would not tell youth to stop selling drugs, particularly when there are so few viable options for employment and money. In fact, they suggest that these men might even lose legitimacy and respect in the community if they proposed such a thing. But these men would encourage the youth to, "do the right thing with the money." That is, older men would encourage youth to use money from the sale of drugs to help his/her family and others in need. Although anecdotal, this information offers an interesting caveat to this research and might help explain the differential effect of traditional role models across the aggravated assault and drug sales models.

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AuthorAffiliation

Karen F. Parker is professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. Her current research interests include exploring the influence of theoretical constructs associated with labor markets and structural disadvantage on urban violence, examining the contextual and spatial dynamics of crime and violence in urban communities, and incorporating change models into the study of disaggregated homicide rates at the city level. Her recent book, Unequal Crime Decline: Theorizing Race, Urban Inequality and Criminal Violence, incorporates racial stratification theories and labor market outcomes into the current debate about the crime drop. Scott R. Maggard is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at Old Dominion University. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Florida in 2006. His current research interests include substance use, structural explanations of urban crime, and racial discrepancies within the criminal justice system. He is currently working on a study examining alternatives to juvenile detention and Disproportionate Minority Confinement (DMC) in Virginia.