Street Codes as Formula Stories
How Inmates Recount Violence
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2365351 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Fiona Brookman (0000-0002-1016-7088, University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, Wales, United Kingdom), H Copes (0000-0001-8029-1837, University of Alabama at Birmingham, corresponding author), Andy Hochstetler (0000-0003-2158-2620, Iowa State University, Ames) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 40 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 397-424 |
| Publication date | 2011-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Contemporary Ethnography (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0891-2416 • E-ISSN: 1552-5414 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0891241611408307 |
| OpenAlex | W2132602469 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 46 |
| References cited | 54 |
Recent developments in the study of narratives suggest that people can construct identity by referencing acculturated stories (i.e., formula stories) and often do so when explaining untoward behavior. Formula stories connect one's personal identity with generally accepted subcultural identities and the narratives associated with them. In light of this, it becomes clear that cultural codes (e.g., the code of the streets) provide structured storylines. Using data from semistructured interviews with 118 violent inmates incarcerated in the United Kingdom, this study examines how they use the code of the street when describing specific violent events. The authors find that violent inmates portray themselves as respectable by situating their past violence within the prescripts of the code; however, the inmates' narratives are not always consistent or drawn from singular formula stories. In fact, many participants offered various storylines and interpretations when describing violent events. We conclude that future theoretical development should aim to integrate perspectives focused on street codes, individual identity, and other acculturated factors and that understanding codes as narrative forms is essential
Aesthetics · Art · Code (set theory · Construct (python library · Identity (music · Linguistics · Narrative · Sociology · Computer Science · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Psychology · Racial and Ethnic Identity Research · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology
Interactional privilege of violence
Hostile, Quick-Tempered, and Exposed to Dangerous Environments
Culpability and Fairness
The Oxford Handbook of Ethnographies of Crime and Criminal Justice
Clarifying street culture
“I got caught, but I’m not a loser”
From Subcultures to Toolkits
‘Stories from the shadows’ narrative poses of incarcerated men convicted of murder related to organized crime in the Netherlands
Denying the Darkness
Connecting setting and subculture
Street talk and Bourdieusian criminology
The presentation of self in everyday prison life
Narrative habitus
Techniques of legitimation
The Code of the Street Fights Back! Significant Associations with Arrest, Delinquency, and Violence Withstand Psychological Confounds
The right way to be a woman’
Offender and/or client? Fuzzy institutional identities in prison-based drug treatment in Denmark
Re-storying punishment
Dying to survive
Resistentia feminarum in visionibus
Narratives of illness and offending
The past, present, and future of narrative criminology
The characteristics of street codes and competing performances of masculinity on an inner-city housing estate
Breaking the code of the street
Endorsing the Street Code
Not your normal drug dealing guy”
Drug sellers’ neutralizations of guiltless drug sales and avoidance of “drug dealer” identities
It's a War Out There
Peaceful Warriors
The Funny Side of Drug Dealing
The Code of the Street and Inmate Violence
Drug Control Policy, Normalization, and Symbolic Boundaries in Amsterdam’s Coffee Shops
Violence is completely normal’
I Did What I Had to Do’
Exploring Violent Cosmologies From a “Radical Interactionist” Approach
In the Shadow of the Monster
Flexible cultural repertoires
Performing Hypermasculinity
Place-Based Elicitation
Motherhood, Agency and Sacrifice in Narratives on Female Migration for Care Work
Are self-narratives strategic or determined, unified or fragmented? Reading Breivik's Manifesto in light of narrative criminology
The bullying-school shooting nexus
A Comparison of Gang- and Non-gang-Related Violent Incidents from the Incarcerated Youth Perspective
Of Monsters and Men
Criminal Crews, Codes, and Contexts
Accounting for Violations of the Convict Code
Code of the street
Armed Robbers in Action
Street capital
The Redemptive Self
Structure and Culture in African American Adolescent Violence
The Code of the Street
Language and social reality
Modernity and Self-Identity
Street Justice
Identities and Interactions
“I Ain't Gonna Let No One Disrespect Me”
The Subculture of Violence
Continuity and Change in the Life Story
What can “Lies” Tell Us about Life? Notes towards a Framework of Narrative Criminology
Collecting and Analyzing the Stories of Offenders
What Have We Learned from Five Decades of Neutralization Research
Violent Criminal Acts and Actors Revisited
Observations of Deviance
Pathways to Recurrent Trauma Among Young Black Men
Lower Class Culture as a Generating Milieu of Gang Delinquency
It’s not Where you Live, it’s How you Live”
When Being Good Is Bad
Race, Code of the Street, and Violent Delinquency
Snakes and Ladders
Snitching and the Code of the Street
The Foreground Dynamics of Street Robbery in Britain
Narrative Practice and the Coherence of Personal Stories
The narratives of offenders
Street capital
Gangster, victim or both? The interdiscursive construction of sameness and difference in self-presentations
Aligning Actions
Accounts
Techniques of Neutralization
Life as Narrative
The Oven Bird's Song
Battlin' on the Corner
Community Tolerance of Gang Violence
Doing Gender
Accounting for Doing Gender
Where You From
Telling the Code of the Street
The Study of Identity As Cultural, Institutional, Organizational, and Personal Narratives
Theorizing Narrative Identity
Becoming Violent
A Narrative Search for Respect
| Unique citing works | 46 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,54 |
| Citation span | 2013 - 2026 (14) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 46 |