Community Violence and Children on Chicago’s Southside

Abstract

This report summarizes a program of study on African-American children and violence conducted by a comprehensive community mental health center on the southside of Chicago. The research, which looked at exposure to violence, self-reports of aggression, and possible interventions, grew out of: (1) an awareness of the enormous amount of familial and extrafamilial violence in the black community; (2) clinical experiences that indicated that victimization and covictimization (i.e., victimization of close others) were often significant factors in the lives of the mentally ill; (3) a growing uneasiness, and indeed curiosity, over the extent to which children were witnessing these events and the impact of this witnessing, particularly on their own levels of aggression; and (4) a belief that the integrity of the black community was being threatened by the violence and that solutions must be sought.

Pathways to Drug and Sexual Risk Behaviors among Detained Adolescents

“…Levels of community violence in this population were high, yet consistent with levels of exposure reported among other study populations such as urban youth (Bell & Jenkins 1993;Sheidow, Gorman-Smith, Tolan, & Henry, 2001;Voisin, 2002). Findings indicated that community violence exposure was significantly associated with drug and sexual risk behaviors among detained youth.…”

Children's Witnessing of Adult Domestic Violence

“…For example, Eth and Pynoos (1985) estimated that 10% to 20% of homicides in Los Angeles were witnessed by children. Jenkins, Bell and their colleagues (Jenkins & Thompson, 1986;Bell & Jenkins, 1993) have found in studies of Southside Chicago that over one-fourth of all children interviewed have either witnessed a shooting or a murder. A more recent study (Jenkins & Bell, 1994) of a high violence neighborhood found that almost a half (47%) of the youth interviewed had witnessed a stabbing and almost two-thirds (60.9%) a shooting.…”

Risk Factors for Community Violence Exposure in Adolescence

“…Aggressive youth may place themselves in hostile settings or dangerous situations that increase the likelihood that they will experience community violence. Relatedly, selfreported use of violence (DuRant et al, 1994), youth weapon carrying (Bell & Jenkins, 1993;Uehara, Chalmers, Jenkins, & Shakoor, 1996) and prior arrest are associated with exposure to community violence. These aggressive behaviors and events each typically occur in hostile or dangerous settings, enhancing the likelihood of youth exposure to community violence.…”

“…Increased age also has been associated with greater exposure to community violence (Richters & Martinez, 1993;Selner-O'Hagan, Kindlon, Buka, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1998;Weist et al, 2001). African American youth are more often witnesses and victims of community violence than are White youth (Bell & Jenkins, 1993;Fitzpatrick & Boldizar, 1993;Gladstein, Rusonis, & Heald, 1992), even after controlling for demographic characteristics such as age and gender . Youth exposure to community violence also varies according to area of residence, with youth residing in economically poorer areas (Fitzpatrick & Boldizar, 1993;Schubiner, Scott, & Tzelepis, 1993), urban areas (Campbell & Schwarz, 1996), and high crime areas (Selner-O'Hagan, et al, 1998) at greatest risk of exposure.…”