Intervening Processes Between Youths’ Exposure to Community Violence and Internalizing Symptoms Over Time: The Roles of Social Support and Coping

Throughout the reentry literature, there is widespread recognition about the central role of social support—including emotional and instrumental support—to prevent recidivism and promote integration. Although emotional support is often considered a relatively more important construct than instrumental support in scholarship on stress and coping, reentry research generally focuses on the provision of material and informational resources. This chapter analyzes novel data—daily open-ended survey questions via smartphones about a person’s most important positive and negative points of the day—to understand the types of social support that people most value in their daily lives in the immediate months after release from prison. Using this approach, the chapter describes the importance of spending time with others, the central role of children, and changes in support over time. The chapter concludes by recommending that reentry scholars pay greater attention to the construct of emotional support in studies of recidivism and integration.

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Reciprocal Relationships Between Exposure to Community Violence and Sleep Problems Across Adolescence

The Journal of Early Adolescence ◽

10.1177/0272431620977668 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 027243162097766

Author(s):

Sylvie Mrug ◽

Catheryn A. Orihuela ◽

Alex Veerasammy

Keyword(s):

Community Violence ◽

Early Adolescence ◽

Violence Exposure ◽

Urban Adolescents ◽

Sleep Problems ◽

Community Violence Exposure ◽

Reciprocal Relationships ◽

Latent Trajectory ◽

Exposure To Community Violence ◽

Over Time

Urban adolescents experience high rates of exposure to community violence, which is associated with sleep problems. However, less is known about the prospective relationships between community violence exposure and sleep problems across adolescence. This study investigated reciprocal relationships between community violence exposure and sleep problems across early, middle, and late adolescence. Participants included 84 urban adolescents (50% females, 95% African Americans) who reported on their community violence exposure and sleep problems at mean ages 13, 16, and 17. Results from an autoregressive latent trajectory model with structured residuals showed that exposure to community violence at age 13 predicted more sleep problems at age 16, but violence exposure at age 16 did not predict sleep problems at age 17. Sleep problems did not predict community violence exposure over time. These results point to early adolescence as a vulnerable period for the development of sleep problems in youth exposed to community violence.

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Effects of Exposure to Community Violence on Internalizing Symptoms: Does Desensitization to Violence Occur in African American Youth?

Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology ◽

10.1007/s10802-011-9510-x ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 39 (5) ◽

pp. 711-719 ◽

Cited By ~ 59

Author(s):

Noni K. Gaylord-Harden ◽

Jamila A. Cunningham ◽

Brett Zelencik

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

Community Violence ◽

Internalizing Symptoms ◽

African American Youth ◽

Exposure To Community Violence

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The Relationship Between Violence Exposure and Academic Achievement in African American Adolescents Is Moderated by Emotion Regulation

The Journal of Early Adolescence ◽

10.1177/0272431616675973 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 38 (4) ◽

pp. 497-512 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Vinetra L. King ◽

Sylvie Mrug

Keyword(s):

Academic Achievement ◽

Emotion Regulation ◽

African American ◽

Community Violence ◽

Low Income ◽

African American Adolescents ◽

Negative Effects ◽

Exposure To Community Violence ◽

The Relationship ◽

Over Time

Compared with other ethnic groups, African American adolescents are exposed to higher levels of family and community violence, which contribute to poorer academic achievement. This study examines whether emotion regulation moderates the effects of exposure to family and community violence on academic achievement among low-income African American adolescents. Eighty African American adolescents ([Formula: see text] age 12.89 years, 50% male) reported on their exposure to violence. Emotion regulation was obtained from parent reports and academic achievement was assessed with grades in core academic subjects at baseline and 2 years later. Results revealed that witnessing home violence predicted poorer achievement over time, as did exposure to community violence for youth with poor emotion regulation. Thus, well-developed emotion regulation skills may protect African American adolescents from the negative effects of witnessing community violence on academic achievement.

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Individual Differences in Patterns of Community Violence Exposure and Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors

Journal of Interpersonal Violence ◽

10.1177/0886260519867148 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 088626051986714

Author(s):

Sharon F. Lambert ◽

Rachel M. Tache ◽

Sabrina R. Liu ◽

Karen Nylund-Gibson ◽

Nicholas S. Ialongo

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

Aggressive Behavior ◽

Community Violence ◽

Internalizing Symptoms ◽

Violence Exposure ◽

Behavioral Adjustment ◽

Individual Characteristics ◽

Community Violence Exposure ◽

Exposure To Community Violence ◽

Internalizing And Externalizing

Youth community violence has been linked with depressive and anxious symptoms, and aggressive behavior; however, little research has examined different combinations of emotional and behavioral adjustment among community-violence-exposed youth, or individual characteristics that may account for different patterns of emotional and behavioral adjustment in community-violence-exposed youth. This research used person-centered methods to examine how gender, temperament characteristics, and prior exposure to community violence were linked with classes of community violence exposure and internalizing and externalizing adjustment among a sample of urban African American youth. Participants were 464 African American adolescents (46.7% female; mean age = 14.83, SD = .43) who reported their community violence exposure in Grade 9 and for whom reports of depressive and anxious symptoms, and aggressive behavior were available. Latent class analysis identified four classes of adolescents distinguished by their exposure to community violence exposure and internalizing and externalizing behavior. The two classes with high community violence exposure were characterized by internalizing symptoms or aggressive behavior; the two classes with low community violence exposure had low internalizing symptoms with moderate aggression or had all moderate symptoms. These community violence adjustment classes were distinguished by gender, history of community violence exposure, behavioral inhibition, and fight–flight–freeze systems. Findings highlight heterogeneity in internalizing and externalizing responses of community-violence-exposed youth and suggest factors that explain community violence exposure, repeat exposure, and responses to community violence exposure.

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