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Article Summary

Chauhan, P., & Reppucci, N. (2009).
The impact of neighborhood disadvantage and exposure to violence on self-report of antisocial behavior among girls in the juvenile justice system. Journal of Youth and Adolescence 38(3), 401.

     The authors examined the relationships between neighborhood disadvantage, victimization, and exposure to violence and self-reported antisocial behavior among a sample of girls in the juvenile justice system for violent offenses (N=141). They argue that the rising number of girls in the juvenile justice system demonstrates a need to extend previous research on boys and adults to the population of female offenders. Furthermore, previous research documents racial disparities among both boys and girls in the juvenile justice system (e.g., see Blitstein et al., 2005). They suggest that neighborhood disadvantage and exposure to violence may account for some of these disparities. However, the research on neighborhood disadvantage yields mixed results and is complicated by the fact that people who live in disadvantaged neighborhoods also experience a host of other risk factors for antisocial behaviors, such as witnessing violence, victimization, exposure to deviant peer groups, academic difficulties, and parental criminality and/or substance abuse, among others.
     Chauhan and Reppucci used a longitudinal research design with a sample of violent girls (ages13–19) and controlled for individual risk factors, such as reading achievement and maternal risk (e.g., maternal criminality and substance abuse). They included a global measure of antisocial behavior and two subscales for violent offending and delinquency. They found that Black girls were significantly more likely than White girls to live in disadvantaged communities, but that they reported similar levels of exposure to violence (measured as both witnessing and experiencing it). Overall, neighborhood disadvantage was associated with an increase in exposure to violence. However, there was a great deal of variation in subjective experiences in the community; simply living in a disadvantaged community was not a strong link to antisocial behavior. Furthermore, the context of victimization influenced the relationship with antisocial behavior. Parental physical abuse was associated with violent offending, whereas physical abuse by peers was not predictive of antisocial behavior for girls. Witnessing violence was a predictor of both antisocial behavior and delinquent behavior. Chauhan and Reppucci suggest that by witnessing violence girls may be introduced to a world of antisocial possibilities (e.g., friendships with deviant peers may provide access to weapons, training, etc.).
     To further understand the potential for a differential impact of risk factors by race, the authors provide additional race-specific analysis. These analyses indicate that contextual factors do, in fact, play a grater role for Black girls than for White girls. Witnessing violence was a stronger risk factor for antisocial behavior in Black girls. Chauhan and Reppucci suggest it is possible that “the severity and quality of violence witnessed by Black girls may be different given that they reside in more disadvantaged neighborhoods” (p. 413). On the other hand, parental physical abuse was a stronger predictor of violent behavior for White girls than for Black girls.