codeofthestreet.net & Curt Byers

The codeofthestreet.net website and blog exists to:

  1. Function as a clearinghouse for research about, advocacy for, and examples of, “cultural context-informed” clinical models and intervention programs specific to or informed by issues unique to urban and minority communities.
  2. Highlight and document:   a)  Yale sociologist Elijah Anderson‘s “Code of the Street” concept with close to 25 years of corroborative research as the best candidate model on which to base “cultural context-informed” programs and curricula. b) Unnever and Gabbidon’s Theory of African American Offending, a more technical and conventionally academic research-based model that largely compliments and reinforces Anderson’s  but with more specific outcome propositions that may be more helpful in practical application.
  3. Show how deriving design criteria for remedial or preventive individual and/or community-level intervention programs from the  Code of the Street and African American Theory of Offending models works in practice both as applied to current treatment models and programs and in new and developing programs and curricula, and to highlight research demonstrating the improved efficacy of such culturally contextualization in achieving long term offender attitude and behavior change with implications for both lower rates of recidivism after offenders return to their communities and improved general quality of life.
  4. Apply and demonstrate the relevance of this research to an understanding of how a juvenile’s living by the  Code of the Street ethos, a) predisposes to violence and criminality, b)  can inhibit  engagement with and receptivity to conventional treatment and, c)  poses challenges for  post-discharge reentry and effective functioning in mainstream culture including finding and sustaining employment.
  5. Identify and call attention to a) the leading theorists and clinicians conducting this research and especially those applying it in juvenile corrections, b) the most significant skeptics and critics of the Code of the Street model and, c) to the most significant Code of the Street-informed  publications and working programs.
  6. Document the problematic nature and lack of research support for Samenow and Yochelson’s “Criminal Personality” model especially as the primary underlying criminological model for many  juvenile justice clinical intervention programs.

Curt Byers, MDiv, CESP*, is founder and principal of Wealright Consulting and site owner of codeofthestreet.net

Curt is the designer and author of the workplace readiness curriculum Take Charge and the self-advocacy and anger/hostile interaction management) curriculum Zombie Resistance Training, approved by the OVR for use in PA high school transition programs.  The primary design objective in both cases was being evidently relevant and helpful to students in mainstream high school transition programs. However, while neither curriculum makes specific content references to juvenile justice or Anderson’s Code of the Street, both also address some of the typical post-discharge, post-graduation employment challenges predicted by the Code of the Street model and observed in juvenile offenders living by its ethos.

Curt comes to curriculum design for vocational rehabilitation and juvenile justice by way of, 1) having previously published curricula in both the U.K. and the U.S., 2) eight years of full time clinic-based practice as a psychotherapist specializing in children and adolescents with both general and Autism Spectrum Disorder-related behavior challenges, 3) increasing focus on vocational rehabilitation as his adolescent clients with ASD began to graduate and face challenges in first experiences with employment and vocational rehabilitation services, 4) two and a half years working in a residential juvenile treatment facility as a supervisor and counselor and, 5) writing the PETS curricula described above as the first Director of Employment Services for a major eastern Pennsylvania intellectual disability services non-profit.

SEE PREVIOUS MAJOR PROJECTS HERE

*Certified Employment Support Professional