Dario, Lisa

A set of informal street codes that govern inner city environments in the U.S. have been identified by scholar Elijah Anderson. Anderson’s street code has been analyzed in a variety of ways, including via rap lyrics. This analysis documented how reflective culture and the street code is within a nontraditional source - music. By researching a Mexican sub-genre of music known as narco corridos, I extend this work with a qualitative lyrical content analysis. Using a sample size of 100 narco corridos sourced via the music application Spotify, Anderson’s framework was used as a starting point to uncover themes of violence, poverty, and respect. Findings support the existence of the street code in a violent Mexican subculture. To conclude, using music as a nontraditional academic source can be a powerful way to analyze and comprehend crime and culture in other areas of the world.

It is an axiom among both researchers and the public that American perceptions of the police are racially divided. Previous studies have traditionally focused on interracial perceptions, and have found support for social variables (e.g. education) and legal variables (e.g. prior arrest). The current study seeks to determine if legal oppression or social oppression are better predictors of negative attitudes toward the police among a sample of black university students. Ordinary least squares regression seeks determine which set of factors better predict police perceptions. This intra-racial examination allows future research to parse nuances among police perceptions in the black community. The implications of these results and future directions are discussed, in particular for the continued development of a black criminology (Unnever, Gabbidon, & Chouhy, 2019).