Children's exposure to community violence.

Abstract

Over the past decade, the problem of community violence in this country has become a top priority for mental health professionals, researchers, educators, policy makers, and politicians alike (see Elliott & Tolan, 1999). Community violence has been defined as the presence of violence and violence-related events within a person's proximal environment (Shahinfar, Fox, & Leavitt, 2000). This definition encompasses exposure that occurs in or around the home, school, or neighborhood; may involve physical as well as threatened harm; may be witnessed, heard about, or experienced; and may involve known or unknown perpetrators. Violence threatens the safety of children and their families in a place where safety is crucial: their everyday environment. Evidence from both anecdotal and large-scale studies indicates that the psychological, cognitive, and behavioral health of American children is suffering as the result of exposure to trauma within their communities (e.g., Allen,

What's Race Got to Do With It? Racial Socialization's Contribution to Black Adolescent Coping

“…Additionally, Black youth are overrepresented in low‐income families in the United States (Addy, Engelhardt, & Skinner, ), with such economic hardship relating to strained parent–child relationships among Black youth and their caregivers (Anderson, ). Finally, Black youth encounter higher rates of neighborhood violence (e.g., homicide; Voisin, ), which has been linked to psychological distress and posttraumatic stress syndrome in adolescents (Berton & Stabb, ; Kupersmidt, Shahinfar, & Voegler‐Lee, ).…”

Sleep as a Mediator in the Pathway From Violence-Induced Traumatic Stress to Poorer Health and Functioning: A Review of the Literature and Proposed Conceptual Model

“…In the US, an estimated 15 million US children are exposed to domestic violence each year (McDonald, Jouriles, Ramisetty-Mikler, Caetano, & Green, 2006), and results of several studies suggest that anywhere from one-half to over three-quarter of children in urban areas have been exposed to community violence (Kupersmidt, Shahinfar, & Voegler-Lee, 2002; Singer, Menden Anglin, Song, & Lunghofer, 1995). Moreover, approximately 170,000 cases of substantiated or indicated child physical abuse and 88,000 cases of child sexual abuse have occurred annually since 2000 (Child Maltreatment, 2006).…”

Bringing Peace to the Central City: Forgiveness Education in Milwaukee

“…Data from a subset of American cities show that 75%-90% of children in the inner-city have been exposed to or directly victimized by crime (Kuther & Wallace, 2003). Recent qualitative and quantitative reviews of psychological correlates of exposure to community violence have demonstrated that children who are exposed to-or in some cases only hear aboutcommunity violence are at risk for elevated levels of depression, anger, anxiety, sleep problems, behavior problems, and symptoms that parallel those of posttraumatic stress disorder (Garbarino, Dubrow, Kostelny, & Pardo, 1992;Johnson et al, 2002;Kupersmidt, Shahinfar, & Voegler-Lee, 2002). The link between victimization and depression has been established empirically among African American youths in particular (Fitzpatrick, 1993); other empirical work with this subgroup has suggested that negative coping skills mediate the relationship between violence and mental health (Dempsey, 2002).…”