The 1980s witnessed an extraordinary increase in community violence in most major cities across the United States. In 1990 the homicide rate in Boston increased by 45% over the previous year; in Denver, by 29%; in Chicago, Dallas, and New Orleans, by more than 20%; in Los Angeles, by 16%; in New York, by 11%. In Washington, DC, which has the highest per capita homicide rate in the country, the 1990 murder rate set an all time record in the District's history (Escobar 1991). Across the country, 1 out of 5 teenage and young adult deaths was gun related in 1988 - the first year in which firearm death rates for both Black and White teenagers exceeded the total for all natural causes of death combined. Also in 1988, the firearm homicide rate for young Black males increased by 35%, and Black male teens were 11 times more likely than their White counterparts to be killed by guns (Christofel 1990).

The claim that depressed mothers have distorted, inflated, perceptions of their children's problems has been made with increasing frequency in recent years. This review explicates the significance of the depression-->distortion controversy, introduces a set of standards for evaluating distortion claims, and uses these standards to evaluate the key characteristics of 22 studies that have published data directly relevant to the distortion question. None of the studies that claimed evidence for a depression-->distortion influence on mothers' ratings of their children met the necessary and sufficient criteria for establishing distortion. This review challenges the empirical foundation for the widely held assumption that depressed mothers have distorted perceptions of their children's problems. Issues that will require reckoning in future efforts to explore the depression-->distortion question are considered.

The rising tide of violence in American cities has placed the causes and consequences of violence squarely on the public health agenda. The U.S. Government's Year 2000 National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives includes a full chapter devoted to violence issues and delineates a number of goals and programs aimed at reducing the number of deaths and injuries associated with violence (Public Health Service 1990). Notably absent from these objectives, however, is attention to the possible adverse psychological consequences of exposure to acute or chronic violence. Nonetheless, in light of numerous media reports of children's exposure to community violence and recent reports documenting high levels of exposure even among very young children (Richters and Martinez 1993), it is reasonable to question whether the risks of exposure extend beyond death and physical injury to psychological well-being.

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2 studies were conducted to illustrate how measuring a specific aspect of marriage, namely, child-rearing disagreements, provides a better understanding of the link between marriage and boys' behavior. In Study 1, 200 mothers of 3-year-old boys completed unstandardized measures of marital functioning and child behavior. An index of child-rearing disagreements: (1) correlated with a greater variety of behavior problems than nonchild disagreements, and (2) improved upon the prediction of behavior problems after accounting for nonchild disagreements as well as after accounting for boys' exposure to marital conflict. In Study 2, 87 mothers with 4-6-year-old sons completed the index of child-rearing disagreements used in Study 1 as well as standard measures of marital functioning and child behavior. Child-rearing disagreements: (1) predicted a greater variety of behavior problems than global marital adjustment, and (2) improved upon the prediction of internalizing problems after controlling for global marital adjustment as well as after controlling for boys' exposure to marital conflict.