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This paper examines whether Agnew's Social Concern Theory can be applied to explain family violence perpetration among Latino families. Social concern theory maintains that people have biological inclinations to care for the welfare of others, desire close ties with certain individuals, follow certain moral intuitions, and conform to the behaviors of others. As such, this study tests whether an individual's social capital (care about the welfare of others), familismo (desire for close ties), code of the streets (moral intuitions), and obligation to obey the police (conformity to social norms) is associated with family violence among a Latino sample. Using data from the El Paso Neighborhood Survey Project, which surveyed a random sample of 1,059 adults living in El Paso County, Texas in 2014, findings indicate that three of out of four theoretical constructs in the final model were found to be significant. Higher levels of social capital and familismo were associated with lower odds of perpetrating family violence, while code of the streets increased family violence. Obligation to obey the police was non-significant. Agnew's theory modestly explained family violence among Latino families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper conceptualizes two contradictory discourses, both used by ethnic minority drug dealers in a street drug market in Oslo, Norway. Oppression discourse includes personal narratives of unemployment, racism and psycho-social problems, often combined with stories about the government and city council being unwilling to help. Drug dealers use the discourse to justify drug dealing and violence, both for themselves and in meetings with welfare organizations. Gangster discourse, on the other hand, includes a series of personal narratives emphasizing how hard, smart, and sexually alluring the young men are. Drug dealers use this discourse to gain self-respect and respect from others, and it dominates interactions on the street. An important argument in this paper is that the discursive practice of criminals inspires theoretical perspectives on criminal practice. Oppression and gangster discourses have inspired, respectively, neutralization and subculture theory. When the same people use both discourses, however, the picture becomes more complicated. The ‘bilingual’ discursive practice of the street drug dealers reflects the ambivalent role of the researcher, and a Scandinavian institutional and social context where street drug dealers have extensive contact with a welfare state apparatus. The paper still suggests that similar interdiscursivity may have been sacrificed in previous research to produce more coherent theoretical frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the extent to which street violence in the United Kingdom can be explained by a 'code of the street' of the kind described by Anderson in his classic study of crime in the inner-city suburbs of Philadelphia. It draws on research conducted by the authors as part of an ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) project on violent street crime. The accounts of individual offences committed by over 100 street offenders indicate behaviour consistent with the idea of a behavioural code. In particular, offenders described the need to punish disrespect, to express violence overtly to avoid victimisation, to show self-reliance in resolving disputes and to maintain a frightening and formidable reputation. The implications of the existence of such a code for crime prevention are discussed. The study concludes that traditional methods of prevention based on surveillance and technology might be limited and something might be gained by looking at more innovative social and cultural approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]