Unit V Article Review Community Policing Strategies

© 2016 Springer Publishing Company 523 http://dx.doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.VV-D-14-00056

Violence and Victims, Volume 31, Number 3, 2016

No Safe Havens: Protective Parenting Strategies for African American

Youth Living in Violent Communities

Dexter Voisin, PhD Kathryn Berringer, AM University of Chicago, Illinois

Lois Takahashi, PhD University of California, Los Angeles

Sean Burr, AM Jessica Kuhnen, AM

University of Chicago, Illinois

Africans American youth experience disproportionately high rates of exposure to commu- nity violence. Such exposures are associated with a myriad of physical and mental health challenges. However, few qualitative studies have examined the ways in which parental figures have attempted to manage youth exposure to violence. This study recruited 4 focus groups composed of the parents of African American youth (n 5 54). Participants reported that (a) there were no safe places immune from community violence, (b) there were no populations or subgroups protected from community violence, and (c) strategies to man- age exposure to violence were often defined by the gender of the child. Although com- mon protective parental strategies included mixed benefits, they ranged from “sheltering” (keeping children off the streets), “chauffeuring” (transporting or accompanying children to and from places), “removal” (enrolling children in schools outside of the neighbor- hood), and attempting “to rebuild the village.” However, several of these strategies had constraints including money, time, and child maturation. Based on these findings, we offer research, policy, and practice implications in response to community violence exposure among this population.

Keywords: African American youth; exposure to community violence; protective parenting; gender strategies

C ommunity violence consists of violent acts taking place outside the home among people who may or may not know each other. Exposure to community violence includes direct victimization, and/or hearing and witnessing violent acts, such as

gun shots, muggings, robberies, gang- or gun-related incidents (Krug, Dahlberg, Mercy, Zwi, & Lozano, 2002). Globally, youth exposure to community violence is a critical public health concern (Dahlberg & Krug, 2002; World Health Organization, 2004).

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However, among all developed countries, the United States has one of the highest rates of youth exposure to community violence, with nationally representative samples indicat- ing that most youth witness or experience violence or victimization annually (Finkelhor, Turner, Ormrod, & Hamby, 2009). Moreover, among urban adolescents, national rates of exposures to community violence have been as high as 55% (McCart et al., 2007).

There is a great deal of variation in the rates of exposure to community violence throughout the United States based on geography. Rates of violent crimes (i.e., murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) represent one dimension of exposure to community violence and such estimates were highest in Illinois (525 per 100,000), surpassing New York (398 per 100,000) and California (503 per 100,000; Uniform Crime Reports, 2012). Similarly, among large U.S. cities, Chicago continues to have among the highest rates of youth exposure to community violence, with 9.1% of high school students in Chicago reporting being threatened or injured by a weapon on school property, compared to 5.8% in Los Angeles, and 7.1% in New York City, according to the most recent national Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Report (Kann et al., 2014). This is also consistent with the disproportionately high murder rate in Chicago, which at 8.2 per 100,000 is also higher than both Los Angeles (6.0) and New York City (3.8; Uniform Crime Reports, 2012).

Nationally, there are also clear differences in rates of community violence exposure by race and ethnicity, especially among youth. The incidence of homicides per 100,000 among African American male youth was 66.4, compared to 28.4 among Hispanic/Latino males, 16.9 among Asian and Pacific Islander males, and for 3.4 among White males (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010). In addition, White high school students report higher rates of carrying a weapon on school property (5.7%) than both African American (3.9%) and Hispanic students (4.7%). However, a greater percentage of African American (8.4%) and Hispanic students (8.5%) report being threatened or injured with a weapon on school property in comparison to White students (5.8%). Indeed, although some data indicate that overall victimization levels may be similar across racial/ethnic groups, the most extreme disparities between racial and ethnic groups tend to be in the most serious victimization, including robbery and aggravated assault (Esbensen, Peterson, Taylor, & Freng, 2010).

Although serious violent victimization rates have been in the decline, the dispari- ties between racial and ethnic groups persist, with the rate of serious violent victimiza- tion (including aggravated assault, rape, robbery, and homicide) for African American youth (ages 12–17 years) averaging 67% above the rate of their White peers (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006). Among African American adolescents, males also report exposure to violence at consistently higher levels than their female counterparts (Kann et al., 2014), with the nonfatal violent victimization rate for adolescent males (ages 12–17 years) between 1993 and 2003 averaging 50% above the rate for their female counterparts (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006).

Correlates associated with community violence exposure, like the rates of exposure itself, are similarly varied, and a growing body of research explores the mechanisms by which community violence exposure impacts adolescent outcomes (Overstreet, 2000). Among the most documented factors associated with community violence exposure among adolescents are negative mental health deficits including posttraumatic stress disor- der (PTSD; Fowler, Tompsett, Braciszewski, Jacques-Tiura, & Baltes, 2009; McCart et al., 2007). These negative sequelae may manifest as both internalizing and externalizing mental health problems. The type and severity of these outcomes seem to vary depending on the degree of community violence exposure as well as the age of the youth exposed

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(Fowler et al., 2009). Research indicates that community violence exposure is also associ- ated with various other negative sequelae including low school engagement, problematic peer relations (Margolin & Gordis, 2000), and unsafe sexual practices (Voisin, Jenkins, & Takahashi, 2011).

One framework that has been proposed to explain how community violence exposure might interact with risk and protective factors to affect outcomes is an ecological-transactional model (Cicchetti & Lynch, 1993; Overstreet & Mazza, 2003). This model identifies ways in which multiple contexts or ecologies, both distal and proxi- mal, to a young person (i.e., macrosystems, exosystems, and microsystems) might mediate the impact of exposure to community violence, which is defined in this model as eco- logical vulnerability. For instance Cicchetti and Lynch (1993) identify macrosystem-level (i.e., large-scale societal level) factors such as societal willingness to tolerate violence at exceptionally high levels in the United States. Likewise, important exosystem-level factors (i.e., social structures affecting one’s immediate environment) include neighborhood fac- tors, social support networks, the availability of social services, and other pervasive factors associated with socioeconomic status. Similarly, on the microsystem level (i.e., individual interactions between youth and parents), such as parent–child communication might also affect how youth cope and respond to community violence exposures. This model serves as a helpful lens for understanding how environmental and relational factors interact with systems-level vulnerabilities such as community violence exposure when parents employ differing parenting strategies in response to this exposure.

COPING WITH EXPOSURE TO COMMUNITY VIOLENCE

The definition of coping adopted in this article draws from the process-oriented (rather than trait-oriented) theory of coping developed by Lazarus and Folkman (1984). This process-oriented theory focuses on one’s context, both psychological and environmental, and theorizes coping in response to this context, unlike trait-oriented theories which would focus on coping as an attribute of an individual. This definition of coping helps to explain the complicated, multidimensional, and dynamic process by which individuals employ “constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/ or internal demands” (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984, p. 141). Moreover, like the ecological- transactional model, Lazarus and Folkman’s (1987) transactional theory on emotions and coping also highlights systems and relationships in the interplay between person and envi- ronment in this dynamic coping process.

Despite the high rates of exposure to community violence and the deleterious mental health, school engagement, peer relationships, and sexual behaviors associated with such exposures (Margolin & Gordis, 2000; Voisin et al., 2011), few studies have examined how parents and the parenting strategies they employ might be involved in coping processes to manage such exposures to community violence. However, one quantitative study on parental coping reported that parents of middle school children have attempted various measures to protect their children from violence by encouraging their youth to confide in them, increasing parental monitoring, or screening their children’s friends (Horowitz, McKay, & Marshall, 2005). A quantitative study explored the importance of neighborhood factors including collective efficacy as well as parents’ own appraisal of the neighbor- hood in influencing parental messages to adolescent children about violence (Lindstrom Johnson, Finigan, Bradshaw, Haynie, & Cheng, 2011). Findings indicated that the primary

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influence on parental messages were parental attitudes toward violence but that neigh- borhood collective efficacy also seemed to have an independent direct effect on parental advice to manage violence exposures. These preliminary studies, although highly informa- tive, did not explore if findings were gendered and therefore suggest a need for a deeper investigation into the particular strategies employed and messages delivered to youth by their parents in the face of reoccurring community violence.

In addition, despite the significance of the aforementioned findings, extant research on coping processes tend to be mostly quantitative with a primary youth focus. For example, Rosario, Salzinger, Feldman, and Ng-Mak (2003) noted that among a multieth- nic sample of 667 sixth graders, behavioral coping approaches typically fell within three domains: strategies to avoid, reduce, or tolerate stress. This study also documented that confrontational coping was related to increased delinquency among the overall sample and increased the impact of witnessing violence for boys. Berman, Kurtines, Silverman, and Serafini (1996), in an earlier study using a multiethnic youth sample (N 5 96), found that negative coping (e.g., criticizing, blaming others, wishful thinking) was related to PTSD symptoms. Finally, in one qualitative study, Voisin, Bird, Hardesty, and Shi Shiu (2010) documented coping styles among African American youth ranging from “getting through,” which included both an acceptance of community conditions; “getting along,” which included self-defense techniques; “getting away,” which included avoidance coping strate- gies; to “getting back,” which consisted of confrontational coping strategies. In addition, boys reported more confrontational coping styles than girls, who used more avoidance approaches (Voisin et al., 2010).

In summary, an important gap in extant literature, and one that this study attempts to address, consists of research to investigate how parents may interact with other systems- level factors to ameliorate the degree of exposure to community violence and enhance protective strategies generally or by gender. Consequently, the analytic aims of this study were to identify parental strategies to strengthen adolescent coping strategies to exposure to community violence and to explore whether any such measures differed by gender.

METHOD

Design

This study used a qualitative study design. Focus groups offer several distinct advantages that were important for this study. Focus groups are important for generating new insights into social, complex phenomenon; privileging participant voices through group dialogue versus researcher-directed questions; exposing how participants think about a topic, rather than just what they think about it; and encouraging participants to contribute through con- versation with their peers in an economical and time-efficient method (Kitzinger, 1994). Moreover, the focus group method is particularly useful when there are power differentials between the participants and decision-makers or professionals and when the everyday use of language and culture of particular groups is of interest to a given topic (Kitzinger, 1994).

Recruitment and Participants

We recruited parents and legal guardians of African American youth who were between the ages of 14 and 18 years and resided in Chicago for possible study enrollment. Study flyers were posted at community centers, churches, and other public places frequented

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by African American parents and legal guardians. In addition, five recruiters trained by the first author (DV) solicited potential participants at bus stops, outside supermarkets, in community centers, and housing developments in largely African American communities. Respondents lived in various communities on Chicago’s South Side. Given Chicago’s history of neighborhood segregation, the vast majority of these communities are racially segregated and predominantly African American. Participants were eligible if they were African American, born in the United States, and were parents or legal guardians of a youth between the ages of 14 and 18 years.

Data Collection

A minimum of two master’s-level social work students trained by the first author (DV) conducted all focus groups at private locations accessible to participants. The primary questions focused on parental strategies to mitigate the harmful effects of community vio- lence and probed for potential gender differences in parenting practices (e.g., “What are some things parents can do to help reduce the amount of violence children experience outside the home? Do these approaches differ for boys or girls? If so, how?”; “What are some things parents can do to protect children from the negative effects of being exposed to violence outside the home?). For each group, a research assistant took notes on nonverbal communications that could not be captured by audiotapes. The focus group discussions lasted between 60 and 90 min. Participants were offered $30 for study participation. Study protocols were approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of Chicago.

Data Analyses

Transcripts obtained from the focus group audiotapes were analyzed using a grounded theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Although an iterative process, the concepts, categories, and themes derived from the data were used to develop an understanding of how parents attempted to help their children cope with exposure to community violence and whether such approaches may have differed based on gender. This approach allowed us to document similarities and differences across all groups to illuminate the possible relations across all data (Hewitt-Taylor, 2001). More specifically, line-by-line analyses were used to identify repeated ideas, concepts, or elements tagged with codes, which were then extracted from the data. Because more data were collected and analyzed, the data were re-reviewed, codes were then grouped into concepts, and then into categories. To ensure the rigor of the analysis, four researchers discussed the various interpretations of the categories, their meanings, and further refine the emergent themes (Coffey & Atkinson, 1996). Overall, the interrater reliability (kappa coefficient) was satisfactory (.8). Names when used by focus group participants were changed to protect the identity of participants. When applicable, descriptive numerical data (e.g., age, gender, and education) were ana- lyzed using SPSS Version 19.0.

RESULTS

The study recruited 54 parental figures (12 males and 42 females) who participated in four focus groups. Participants ranged in ages from 30 to 76 years, with a mean age of 46.54 years (SD 5 8.74 years). Eighteen respondents had attended high school or had high school degrees, 25 had attended college or had college degree, and 11 had graduate degrees.

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Three general themes emerged related to community violence based on the perspectives of parent participants: (a) There are no safe “havens” or places, although some places are perceived as safer than others; (b) there are no safe types of individuals, even elderly indi- viduals, religious leaders, are not immune from violence; and (c) there were general and gendered strategies used by parents to protect their youth from community violence expo- sures and its effects. The most general parental strategy included sheltering, chauffeuring, removal of their children from violent communities, and attempting to rebuild community protective factors by using “schools” to enhance or recreate “the village.”

No Safe Havens

One common theme that emerged in all of the focus groups and which permeated all areas of discussion was the belief that few if any places within the community could be consid- ered safe from violence. One participant, Sonia, stated, “There are no safe havens . . . ” and referred to the city using the popular epithet, “It’s Chiraq” (combining Chicago and Iraq). Participants across the groups expressed common notions that many places in the community that were previously considered safe (e.g., churches, schools, and homes) were increasingly becoming very dangerous and were now besieged by violence. This theme resonated across all groups; “It’s everywhere,” one participant asserted, and “ . . . there’s no safe neighborhood in Chicago anymore,” another affirmed. In another group, the comment, “There aren’t any safe zones” elicited widespread consensus. Parents expressed a belief that violence can occur “downtown,” in “nice areas,” or near “million dollar homes” easily as in neighborhoods at the other end of the lower socioeconomic spectrum.

Although violence seemed to be considered widespread throughout communities, sev- eral focus group participants identified places where incidences of violence were particu- larly prevalent. Multiple groups referred to schools as the sites of violence, particularly shootings, and referenced certain schools by name. Public transportation systems such as buses and trains especially during school hours were places that were mentioned as places where violence is most likely to erupt, with one participant exclaiming, “Have you been on the bus lately?” to an enthusiastic reaction of agreement from her group that it is an increasingly dangerous site. In addition, although viewpoints were mixed, recreational public spaces, such as parks and basketball courts, were also mentioned as other commu- nity spaces where youth were exposed to community violence.

In summary, although several participants still cited “churches” and “certain schools” as safe places, other participants argued that even these traditionally safe sites had become dangerous, giving examples of gun violence against preachers in the pulpit and during funeral services, or of people being robbed while at church. Despite the widespread lack of safety and security with communities, several participants still indicated that they felt relatively safe within their homes, although this viewpoint was decidedly mixed.

No Safe Groups

Similarly, many participants commented that community members who had historically been “safe” from violence, particularly elderly individuals and clergy, had commonly become increasingly vulnerable. There was a pervasive sense that long-held community traditions of respecting the older individuals and the sacred were being torn down and debased by widespread community violence.

Participants further emphasized that there was an increasing universal vulnerability to community violence irrespective of age, gender, or clerical status and that such acts

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were random, senseless, and could occur anywhere or to anyone. Participant’s recounted common incidences of babies, older individuals, and clergy being killed by gun violence, occurrences that were traditionally uncommon but were now becoming all too frequent.

Several participants recounted incidents where babies were killed by random gun vio- lence, as Helen recalled,

. . . this mother was sitting on the porch holding her baby and someone passed by and started shooting up the house and the baby took several bullets and died . . . these people have gone crazy, imagine they are shooting and not caring who gets killed . . . an innocent baby murdered who has not done nothing to anyone and not even gotten a chance to live or even learn to walk . . .

Other participants reported that older individuals were also commonly besieged by community violence, a violation of long-held community norms. Evelyn reported,

. . . a boy somewhere around 13 to 15 attacked and robbed this old lady . . . there was a time when old people were off limits and respected by young people . . . young people would have their beef and rob and steal from each other but they knew not to put their hands on old people . . . that [old person] could be their mother or grandmother . . . they should know better, they would not want anyone to rob or harm their own people.

Across all groups, several participants reported that ministers and other clergy were increasingly becoming victims of community violence. Melissa recounted an incident of a priest being shot inside the church.

. . . this whole thing [violence] is crazy, it is like the wild, wild, west, gangster style. This one priest was shot inside the church . . . people are shooting in churches. Imagine on church doors they have stickers saying “no guns allowed” . . . crazy you have to put that on church doors . . . that is all so crazy. Back in the day, church was a respected and sacred place . . . not anymore.

In summary, numerous participants endorsed this theme that community violence had no respect for any groups of persons “ . . . these people come together anywhere and take it [vio- lence] anyplace and everywhere, [they take on committing violence] like it’s a job.” For many participants, violence was unpredictable, fairly random, and perpetrated in mob-style fashion.

Common Protective Parenting Strategies

The three most prevalent parenting strategies described by focus group participants in response to community violence exposure were “sheltering,” “chauffeuring,” and “removal.” Sheltering consisted of limiting activities within the community, chauffeuring consisted of driving children between school, home, and recreational sites, and removal consisted of enrolling children in schools outside of the neighborhood.

Participants expressed a general sense that there was a lack of safety within Chicago’s schools, and many reported removing their children from Chicago Public Schools (CPS) altogether. Several focus group participants indicated that they believed that suburban schools, private schools, and/or charter schools outside the neighborhood were a safer alternative to the public school system. Many participants also discussed choosing to live in the suburbs although there was disagreement by the participants about whether the suburbs—or any place—was safe.

The most prominent protective parenting strategies appeared to be sheltering and chauf- feuring children, and there seemed to be very little variation between male and female parents and male and female children. Many focus group participants offered examples

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of limiting the activities of their youth, insisting that they go from “ . . . home to school, staying away from playgrounds and public recreational spaces,” with as one participant described parents acting as their “private chauffer services, taking them to and from school, to the mall and avoiding public transportation because those are the places where violence is likely to jump off.” However, such strategies were also seen as incurring other negative costs. For instance, Roma indicated that “ . . . her son is relatively safe because he really does not go anywhere other than home and school” but that “he is a pussycat because he has book sense but no street sense and does not know how to survive or handle himself on the streets because he is so sheltered.”

Most participants discussed chauffeuring as a common strategy to reduce children’s exposure to community violence, which consisted of driving or actively accompanying children to school or around the community, described as a “limousine service” by one participant. Another participant described, “If I don’t have enough gas that day—and I’m going to be honest to you—to take them to school, they not going,” to which the group responded with a chorus of “Amen.”

There were downsides to all of these strategies. First, without experience in the neigh- borhood, children are less able to navigate their own communities. One parent explained, “The consequence is that they don’t know anybody in the neighborhood and are less safe as a result.” Participants suggested that a few number of friends in the neighborhood meant limited protection against community violence. One participant, whose children live in the south suburbs but stay with him every other weekend in the city, stated,

I don’t feel comfortable letting them [go] to the park—“Y’all don’t know anyone over here”—they don’t understand the mentality that the suburban kids have and the inner city kids have. They don’t experience none of the violence directly, I just don’t feel comfort- able letting them go out there.

Second, attending an institution outside the community can create a stigma that the child “thinks they are better than” or is “not as street smart” inadvertently setting their child up to become a target of violence. Parents went on to explain that neighborhood youth would often target peers who they believed felt they were superior to the other adolescents in the community, which often resulted in “high-minded youth becoming targets and victims of peer violence.” Allison stated that her son was attacked because of this stigma, “My son was jumped because he attended Urban Prep . . . and the other kids thought that he felt he was better than them . . . ” (a selective enrollment charter school located in another geographic community).

Third, there are financial and time costs to these strategies. Chauffeuring means high financial costs of transportation (gas, commuter train costs, etc.), and removal means a high temporal commitment. One participant described that she had extended her child’s day by sending her to school on the North Side from 6:15 am to 5:15 pm. She said, “We attach an hour and a half of travel time onto our kids’ days and still expect them to get the same amount done . . . ”

Finally, sheltering, removal, and chauffeuring may impede child development and maturation. One participant described, “I don’t let my kids get on the bus or walk down the street . . . [but] that’s not the answer though because it hinders . . . their maturation.” Another described, “Something else has to happen because that’s not a good fix . . . because you’ll end up with eighteen, 21-year-olds who’ve never been on a bus.”

Many focus group participants saw rebuilding community networks and institutions as a solution to the challenge of community violence exposure among their children.

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Participants echoed the notion that “It really does take a village,” with another participant stating, “and I know that sounds like a cliché but that’s where we have lost.” One partici- pant described the need for institutions,

The reason why some areas have a higher propensity for violence is because in some neighborhoods, they have YMCA, they have BAM programs like my child is in, they have afterschool programs, they have community programs, when you have other neighborhood[s] that have kids that are just as good and just as smart [that don’t have these sorts of community supports], that is where the greater violence is.

There seemed to be a consensus that both the problem of youth violence and its solution depended on the entire community—that to effectively curtail violence, the community would need to engage in “rebuilding the village.” However, participants also expressed a paradox, with one participant summarizing, “We need the village but we don’t trust the vil- lage.” This was a common theme across all groups that trust or cohesion was undermined among members in communities were exposure to community violence was prevalent.

Gendered Protective Parenting Practices

Several focus group participants indicated that parenting strategies were different by gender and identified noticeable gender-specific ways in which they taught their youth to cope with or respond to such exposures. Most participants agreed that boys were more likely to experience severe forms of violence within the community because they were more physically threatening than girls and as such when approached or attached, such incidences were more likely to be violent or fatal. As Evoria explained, “ . . . violence is just on a much more dangerous level because men are more of a threat . . . which can result in someone getting killed.”

Consequently, a prominent theme from some focus group participants was the gen- dered strategy to de-escalate aggressive and potentially violent male-to-male encounters by teaching their boys to “walk away, try and cool down the situation” to stay alive. Jalen, a father recounted a story of walking down the street with his 15-year-old son and being aggressively approached and shoved by four male teenage youth. Jalen described how he moved aside and modeled for his son the act of walking away because he believed that retaliation might result in him or his son being shot. He stated that although he fought the urge not to “ . . . get punked in the eyes of [his] son . . . it was more important that his son had a father who was alive than dead.” Several focus group participants stated that they tried to teach their sons to “walk away and then get help.” There was this common theme across all groups that boys were more aggressive than girls and such as “ . . . things can quickly go really wrong and sometimes deadly when boys get into it . . . ”

Many participants indicated that boys compared to girls experienced double jeopardy at the hands of community violence and higher susceptibility to becoming targeted by criminal justice systems. This was another reason why some parents were more inclined to teach their sons not to use aggressive force, if avoidable, when confronting community violence. Jacquie stated that the “ . . . police are looking for boys more . . . they are look- ing for any reason to put our sons away . . . you have more Black boys in prison than in college . . . ” Several participants identified for African American boys this position of the double bind—mistrust of many community police to protect them and the real fear that if they reported incidences of violence to the police that they could further be harmed or killed. Within one focus group, many of the participants echoed a popular statement “ . . . snitches get stitches . . . ” Focus group participants discussed how young men in particular,

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must manage daily threats from within their community (violence) and the external threat of sometimes being unfairly targeted by police.

In contrast, focus group participants indicated that the messages given to daughters were different. Participants acknowledged that girls experienced greater physical and sexual vul- nerability than boys and therefore there was a perceived need to “equal the playing field.” Focus group participants consistently stated the need to protect daughters from various forms of gender-based and sexual violence. Parental strategies included discussing what clothing their daughters wear, explaining, “I tell her don’t wear certain types of clothes because it incites certain types of problems.” Community violence was, as Monica described, “ . . . both physical and psychological . . . ” with “ . . . people that try to control them.” Participants discussed the challenge of modeling protective communication behavior to girls who may be vulnerable to negative or violent interactions from male partners. One parent described a need to “talk with girls respectfully so they can recognize when they aren’t being treated well.”

The distinct challenges faced by women and girls led to several parents reinforcing the need for their daughters to carry weapons for defense. Shirley described women carrying weapons as a way to “put ourselves on equal footing as a man,” with most participants agreeing that women are “packing extra to put them on the same level.” Eunice lamented the need for young girls to carry weapons, stating,

. . . it’s because I don’t want them [my daughter] to be like me, I don’t want her to be afraid of everything. When I get on the train I got a Taser, I have a knife, and I have Mace. Why do I have all of this? I don’t want her to be me like me, I want her to be able to live free, protect herself but live free at the same time . . .

Several parents indicated that they had forthright discussions with both their sons and daughters about community violence and often watched the local evening news as a way to “ . . . talk about the topic and explain to them the need to be careful on the streets, given that someone was continuously getting shot in Chicago and the news always happy to report it.” In contrast, one mother reported that she did not allow her daughter to watch the local news for this reason and only looked at it with her son because she did not want her daughter to walk around in terror like she did. This strategy was opposite from the com- mon opinion of other parents who indicated the need to have both sons and daughters well informed about the level of violence within their communities.

In summary, there were several ongoing tensions parents reported when attempting to protect their youth from community violence exposures. There was a general consensus that violence exposures were more prevalent and lethal among males compared to females; therefore, parents attempted to teach their sons ways of de-escalating or walking away from violent encounters. Whereas daughters given their physical vulnerabilities were encouraged to use more aggressive coping strategies when protecting themselves from community violence.

DISCUSSION

This is one of the few studies to examine how African American parents attempt to help their youth navigate violent communities and the strategies used to protect them in the face of such dangers. Prior qualitative findings have indicated that parents have employed various strategies to protect their youth from exposure to community violence and its effects such as fostering open dialogues based on trust, increasing parental monitoring,

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and/or screening their children’s friends (Horowitz et al., 2005). This study substantiates and extends those findings by documenting that parents attempted to shield their youth from community violence exposures by primarily sheltering and chauffeuring children— another form of active parental monitoring—although this intended protective strategy at times made these youth susceptible to other types of vulnerabilities. This study extends those earlier findings (Horowitz et al., 2005) by documenting that parents believed that exposure to community violence was pervasive, rampant, random, and that unlike earlier periods in the history of their communities, there were no places or persons who were protected from such exposures.

Prior quantitative findings indicated parents who perceived their neighborhood as hav- ing collective efficacy were less inclined to advise their youth to use aggressive solutions in conflict situations (Lindstrom Johnson et al., 2011). Although this finding was highly significant, this study did not explore whether messages delivered by parents in relation to such exposures were gendered. Findings from this study indicated that some protective approaches by parents in relation to community violence exposures were gendered—such that males were told to use less aggressive strategies to avoid or de-escalate potential com- munity violence exposures but females were encouraged to use more aggressive protective strategies given that they were more physically vulnerable and needed to “even the battle- field” and less likely to be targeted by police for incarceration.

A major finding documented the common belief that rebuilding community institu- tions (e.g., schools) and networks among neighbors would help to reduce community violence exposure. Neighborhood collective efficacy has been identified as a significant factor related to parental messages to their youth about managing exposures to community violence (Lindstrom Johnson et al., 2011). Other related findings have documented that poor neighborhood collective efficacy was related to higher rates of community violence and that strong neighborhood networks were correlated with supporting strong collective efficacy of residents in achieving social control and cohesion (Morenoff, Sampson, & Raudenbush, 2001). However, the findings from this study identifies several important obstacles to the rebuilding “the village or community” in response to violence exposures. First, as participants pointed out, although many stated their desire for enhanced connec- tions and community institutions, many also indicated that they did not trust community members. This is consistent with prior findings which indicate that cohesion (trust) is eroded in communities where community violence exposures are prevalent (Morenoff et al., 2001). Second, the removal strategy consisting of parents removing their children from local schools, parks, and recreational opportunities means that there is a fragmentation of neighbor interactions and routines. Children attending local neighborhood schools have similar schedules, events, and occasions for parental interaction with teachers, students, and other parents. Given the removal strategy, the “school” as a central social anchor for communities might be less applicable to some youth and their families.

Despite the importance of the overall study findings, several study limitations warrant mention. First, this study used a convenience sample, so there was possible selection bias inherent with this approach and consequently our findings are limited to the experiences of our focus group participants. Although we gathered the important perspectives of parents and legal guardians, we did not solicit the opinions of youth. Future research might focus on their perspectives as an additional way of confirming the themes identified in this study and strengthening data triangulation.

Notwithstanding these limitations, these findings have important implications for future research, policy, and practice among African American youth. Future research

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should investigate more fully the cost-benefit of sheltering, removal, and chauffeuring for children living in violent neighborhoods. In addition, forthcoming research would need to validate from the youths’ perspective and using longitudinal designs to examine the effectiveness of these parental strategies by enrolling matched samples of youth and their parents.

From a policy and programmatic perspective, it is important for schools and other youth systems of care and development to account for how exposure to community vio- lence may threaten organizational and individual goals. For instance, schools are primar- ily concerned with youth educational outcomes. However, as these findings illuminate, educational, social, and development outcomes may be impacted positively or negatively by parental attempts to ameliorate exposure to community among their youth. Clearly, parents are teaching their youth various strategies for managing exposure to community violence. Such efforts would need to be supported by large scale school policies that implement evidence-based programs for teaching youth how to recognize and respond to violent situations when avoidable and do so in ways that might diminish personal harm and injury. Such consistent efforts and programs are especially critical in low-resourced, high-violence communities.

Consistently, African American youth bear the highest burden of exposure to commu- nity violence relative to their other ethnic peers. In contrast, too few studies have focused on how their parents may teach their youth to cope in the presence of such random and consistent threats.

This study has deepened our understanding of these concerns and documented how African American parents use general and gendered strategies to reduce exposures to such assaults.

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Acknowledgments. Support for this study was provided by the Center for Health Administrative Study at the University of Chicago. The authors thank the parents who participated in the focus groups and provided their valuable insights. We also acknowledge the contributions of Kathleen Stevens, Fern Tate, and Aaron Mallory who along with the coauthors conducted the focus groups.

Correspondence regarding this article should be directed to Dexter R. Voisin, PhD, University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration, 969 East 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637. E-mail: [email protected]

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