Violence is a widespread phenomenon in juvenile street culture. But the questions of whether this relationship is a deterministic one, and if not, which are the contributing factors, are largely unanswered. This article focuses on the role of public space, starting with a comparison of the meaning of deviant behavior and crime in street culture in Brazil, Russia, and Germany. Focusing on street culture norms and their relevance for youth groups in everyday life, the author shows that there are worldwide similarities, and these are most likely to be seen in disadvantaged neighborhoods. The article deals not only with the question of how people act in conflicts but also focuses on a social order in which the reputation of men is based mainly on questions of masculinity, honor, and power expressed through aggressive behavior. The results are based on more than one hundred semistructured qualitative interviews with street culture youth, prison inmates, adult family members, social workers, police, and researchers that were conducted in recent years in the three countries.The study also describes a typology of conflict behavior among male street culture youth that helps in understanding why even juveniles who were socialized in the milieu of the street culture can reject violence and do not have to turn to violence in all conflicts. The article examines the similarities in the reasons for violence and fear of violence, as well as the differences in frequency and intensity between violent countries (such as Brazil and the Russian Federation) and less violent countries (for example, Germany).

Recent work on desistance from delinquency increasingly considers knifing off — an explicit change of one’s social environment and opportunity structure — but has largely ignored immigration as a cause of knifing off. Interviews with 26 migrants from the Former Soviet Union who were involved in delinquency prior to emigration to Germany show that differences between desisters and persisters with respect to delinquency, agency and the social and structural situation arise just after arrival. Desisters can progress quickly when their agency and motivation are acknowledged in society and when receiving support from new friends and society. Persistence appears to be fostered by quick and repeated negative experiences, and reinforced by making friends who share similar problems rather than providing support in the process of integration.

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The core of the study is the cross-cultural comparison of youth violence, guided by the theoretical framework of the code of the street. As the reports of the single countries showed, the level of violence differs significantly among the cases. It is questionable if the code operates in a general way, as Anderson claims. However, it is not our purpose to reject the concept of the code, but to determine if it is a global concept, or limited more to a specific kind of neighborhood in the US, or that only a few elements are applicable at the global level, and if so, what to consider for developing a more general approach. Therefore, we compare our data only regarding the core dimension of the code of the street. Similarities and dissimilarities are uncovered and analyzed through the results per code element and country. This is the empirical heart of the entire study. The analysis is based on a close reading of the book Code of the Street by Anderson (1999). The core elements of the street code have been extracted from the book, these being: neighborhood perception, street wisdom, respect, enemy, toughness/masculinity, interpretation of symbols, friends, and perception of violence. Once isolated, we translated these elements into guidelines for interviews with male juveniles between 16 and 21 years and conducted 30 qualitative interviews in risky neighborhoods in each of the three comparative countries, being, Germany, South Africa, and Pakistan. Analysis of these interviews enabled us to compare the core elements of the code of the street in these disparate countries.

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