Compare and contrast the three theories.

Theory of differential involvement hypothesis – The theory asserts that minorities especially the blacks are overrepresented in the juvenile and the criminal justice system as they tend to commit a lot of crimes compared to non-blacks, for more extended periods of their lives and also partakes in more of the types of crime which lead to processing in the justice system that includes violence.  

Elijah Ander’s street code thesis – The theory postulates that the behavior of most youths are influenced by a street culture or otherwise the street code which prescribes the violent behavior to interpersonal attacks as well as the signs of disrespect among the people in the society.   

Anthony Walsh’s subculture of violence – The theory postulates that the subcultures of violence are supported by sets of values and attitudes that which are in favor of using violence in the attempt to settle their differences in a variety of contexts, especially in situations which threaten the individual’s status or reputation.

The three theories are similar in that they have been postulated to explain only crimes related to black youths and thus racially postulated. Another similarity is that they are all targeting crimes conducted by the youths, especially black Americans. However, they differ in the sense of the cause of the crime with some being barely assumptions. The subculture of crime suggests that crime is part of the society in which the members use violence to solve their issues, the street code thesis differs in that it assumes that street culture has effect on crime while the differential involvement claims that African Americans are overrepresented in the criminal justice system simply because they commit a lot of crimes. 

The subculture of violence can be termed as to be the best explained. The reason why I believe to be the best is that despite the fact that most of the African American youths commit a lot of crimes compared to non-blacks and at the same time has the strongest street codes, they possess a subculture of violence especially among the young people whereby they resolve their disputes using violence in the attempt to win over the territories. A good example can be during the 1950’s study in Philadelphia, and there were 27 times higher homicide rates among the black males and 23 times higher in black females as compared to whites. Since it is a societal problem, it is difficult to deal with it and thus hard to alleviate, but the rates can be minimized by enforcing peaceful methods of solving disputes.