The excerpt from "The Code of the Streets’ by Elijah Anderson discusses a counterculture, a group that has purposely deviated from the norms and behaviors of the dominant society, that has developed amongst inner city minorities (primarily African-Americans). This group of African-Americans has developed their own informal sanctions to guide their counterculture. Although many of the people in the counterculture want to assimilate into the dominant society, many of them feel trapped and forced into the counter culture by their poverty and racism (both expressed and implied) that is present in dominant society.

From a conflict perspective, the counterculture has decided to deviate from that of the dominant group because of several factors including: "the lack of jobs that pay a living wage, the stigma of race, the fallout from rampant drug use and drug trafficking, and the resulting alienation and lack of hope for the future." Another main reason for the creation of the counterculture is a "profound lack of faith in the police and the judicial system. (64) The police are seen as a part of the dominant white culture to this minority and are no longer respected by this group. Due to the dislike of the dominant values, norms, and beliefs a standard of codes or informal sanctions were set up to regulate the way of life of this society.

Several subcultures have developed as part of the counterculture. Street families and decent families as they are called have developed their own specialized types of socialization. Decent families tend to accept more the sanctions of the dominant society more than that of street families, although, they do instill their children both the informal sanctions of the dominant culture as well as those of the counterculture.

"They [Decent Families] value hard work and self-reliance and are willing to sacrifice for their children. Because they have certain amount of faith in mainstream society, they harbor hopes for a better future for their children, if not for themselves. Many of them go to church and take a strong interest in their children’s schooling."

Decent keep more control of their children’s activities as to keep them out of trouble. Street families, on the other hand, are not as willing to compromise their needs for that of other family members. They are also more involved in the "code of the streets" than their counterparts; this is shown in the more aggressive way of socializing children.

Many of the people of these community are socialized with the attitude that "Might makes right, and toughness is a virtue while humility is not." Younger children are introduced to the code of the streets by watching other agents of socialization such as family and friends engage in verbal and physical disputes that teach the younger children that this aggression is the ideal way of life. This teaches younger generation that need to have and obtain respect, or "juice". Respect can be obtained in two ways, by appearance and by campaigning. To obtain respect through physical appearance includes "clothes, jewelry, and grooming." Their physical appearance may mean that they are part of a specific group or clique or may lead to retaliation to take their respect. "One way of campaigning for status is by taking the possessions of others." By taking the possessions of others and being able to show off what you have taken shows superiority in this society. "The extent to which one person can raise himself up depends on his ability to put another person down."

Women of the counterculture are now trying to imitate the male ideas of respect. They differ however in the fact that they often do not use guns or weapons in fighting so there is less of a chance of death when the women fight. Also, the women mostly fight over gossip that one is spreading about them as opposed to clothing and other personal possessions.

An argot, or specialized language familiar to this counterculture was created. Words such as "old head" [adult role model], "dissed" [disrespected], "hang" [to socialize with friends], "juice" [a person’s share of respect], and other slang terms are used instead of the dominant language.

All of the rules of a counterculture were met in this article. There was a deviance from the dominant culture due to a disagreement in the norms, values, and beliefs of the dominant culture. From a conflict perspective, the counterculture felt as if they needed to deviate because the dominant culture was not protecting them from use of formal sanctions and how they were enforced. They also felt that there was a great sense of inequality that was expressed to them from the dominant culture, which keeps them from not being able to assimilate into the dominant culture. From a functionalist perspective, everyone in the counterculture was able to communicate through an argot that was developed. The people also had their own way of socializing their family, friends, and colleagues that was in most cases through aggression. The "code of the streets" is what kept the environment functional. From an internationalist point of view,