ABSTRACT
Community violence exposure is the “chronic and pervasive presence of violence and violence-related events within an individual’s proximal environment” (Jipguep & Sanders-Phillips, 2003, p. 380). In the United States, the neighborhoods most affected by community violence are also those most affected by poverty with a high concentration of underrepresented minorities in urban environments (Beyers, Loeber, Per-Olof, & Stouthamer-Loeber, 2001; Copeland-Linder et al., 2007). In addition, children and young adults ages 12 to 24 appear to be the majority of individuals who suffer more violent crime than any other age group in these urban environments (Warner & Swisher, 2014). Youth not only experience violence in the roles of victim or perpetrator, they also are harmed by being witnesses to community violence. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Resnick, Ireland, & Borowsky, 2004) found that over 1 in 10 middle-and high-school youth witness a shooting or stabbing each year. Among African American youth, nearly 1 in 4 had this experience, and experiencing chronic forms of community violence has its consequences. Community violence is negatively related to school performance, having an effect on both long-term outcomes such as grade point average and proximal outcomes such as school engagement. African American youth who are disproportionately exposed to community violence have an increased risk for emotional and behavioral symptoms that can detract from learning and undermine academic achievement (Busby, Lambert, & Ialongo, 2013).
