Going to Court: Strategies of Dispute Management in an American Urban Neighborhood

An analysis of the strategies of disputing pursued by the residents of a polyethnic American urban neighborhood reveals that they frequently resort to courts to manage interpersonal and crime-related disputes. Because the legal machinery available to them rarely resolves these disputes, however, the court functions as a sanction rather than a dispute settlement forum. In the absence of effective alternative informal or formal modes of resolving disputes, disputants resort to violence, avoidance, and endurance, a pattern of tolerating ongoing conflict.