The Influence of Structural Characteristics and Street Codes on Violent Female Offenders: A Decade After Anderson’s Initial Observations

Abstract

A large number of studies have examined predictors of female crime quantities yet considerably less attention has been directed toward exploring patterns in the nature or quality of female violence within and across communities. Although research consistently demonstrates that females engage in less criminal behavior than males, research on the variability across contexts is somewhat sparse. The authors conduct analyses to determine if Anderson’s initial observations of female violence in neighborhoods inundated with the code of the streets persist a decade after his initial ethnographic account. Specifically, we examine incident-level data from the National Incident Based Reporting System with contextual-level data on the cities in which the incidents occurred. We use hierarchical linear and nonlinear modeling techniques to explore variations in predictors of offender gun use and extent of victim injury in violent female encounters. Supporting Anderson’s initial accounts for street females and prior research we find the probability of gun usage and level of victim injury is not significantly influenced by differences in community context, and specifically not exacerbated by the types of conditions that make the code of the street locally salient.