The Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods(PHDCN) was designed to investigate the development of crime and violence in children and adolescents. The PHDCN combines a longitudinal study of more than 6,000 Chicago children and adolescents with a study of Chicago neighborhoods. The longitudinal study involved interviews with children, adolescents, and primary caregivers conducted from 1995 through 2001. This report summarizes findings from four recently published papers using the PHDCN longitudinal study to address various questions about adolescent violence. A common factor in all the articles summarized in this report is the important role of neighborhoods in increasing or controlling adolescent violence. Illustrations.

Widespread media narratives portray an epidemic of neighborhood violence in urban areas—often ignoring the structural explanations advanced by community organizers fighting violence and activists such as those in the Movement for Black Lives. In this book, Dexter R. Voisin provides a compelling and social-justice-oriented analysis of current trends in neighborhood violence in light of the historical and structural factors that have reproduced entrenched patterns of racial and economic inequality. America the Beautiful and Violent is built around the powerful voices and insights of black youth in Chicago and their parents and communities. Voisin interweaves their narratives with data, research findings, and historical accounts that provide context for their experiences. He highlights the broad historical, political, economic, and racial factors that shape the construction, concentration, and narratives of violence in black neighborhoods. Voisin explores these forces and the violence they produce; the behavioral health consequences of repeated exposures to neighborhood violence; and the ways youth, families, and communities cope with such traumas. America the Beautiful and Violent offers a set of practice and policy recommendations to address the patchwork inequality that leads to concentrated violence and to support children and adolescents struggling with the precarious conditions and threat of violence in their daily lives.

The ¿code of the street¿ theory presents an explanation for high rates of violence among African-Amer. (AA) adolescents. Observing life in a Phila. AA neighborhood, Anderson saw that economic disadvantage, separation from mainstream society, and racial discrim. encountered by some AA adolescents may lead to anti-social attitudes and to violent behavior. This report explores this thesis; researchers conducted repeated interviews with more than 800 AA adolescents (ages 10 to 15) and their primary caregivers. The researchers looked for developmental relationships between neighborhood and family characteristics, reported experiences with racial discrim., expressed street code values and self-reported violent behavior in young people. Illus.