Poster #68 - Good Kids, Bad Communities: Examining Associations between Perceptions of Community Safety, Polyvictimization, Delinquency, and Post Traumatic Stress Symptoms

• In Event: Poster Session 08

Abstract

Neighborhood safety is strongly associated with psychological and physiological well-being of adolescents (Assari & Caldwell, 2017; Booth et al., 2012; Ross & Mirowsky, 2001), and if left unaddressed, can lead to a multitude of adverse outcomes such as polyvictimization and traumatic stress (Shoemaker et al., 2022; Hamby et al., 2017). These difficulties may then be compounded by other forms of traumatic experiences, given that youth delinquent offenders often report traumatic victimization as the reason for their delinquency (Belknap & Holsinger, 2006; Dixon et al., 2004). Given that racial/ethnic inequalities in community safety largely result from residential segregation (Light & Thomas, 2019), neighborhood safety may also contribute to inequalities in disparities across a broad range of victimization and resulting PTSD symptoms and delinquent behavior. The current study sought to build on this literature by directly assessing whether inequalities in neighborhood safety account for inequalities in polyvictimization (a measure of the breadth of victimization), PTSD symptoms, and delinquent behavior in a longitudinal sample of adolescents.

This data was drawn from the National Survey of Adolescent Replication (NSA-R), a large longitudinal study spanning three years. Participants were 3,312 adolescents ranging from ages 12-17 years who identified as Hispanic/Latinx (n= 409), Non-Latinx Black (n= 557), and non-Latinx White (n= 2,346). To assess perception of safety, both adolescents and caregivers were asked about concerns for safety while the child was at school, in the neighborhood, and in the community. Polyvictimization and PTSD were assessed using a structured interview of the Posttraumatic Stress DMS-IV-TR disorder criterion (Kilpatricket al., 2000). Delinquency was assessed using the self-report Delinquency scale (Elliott & Huizinga, 1983; Elliott et al., 1983). Path models were used to directly compare non-Latinx Black youth to non-Latinx White youth across parent and adolescent perceptions of neighborhood safety, as well as cross-sectional and longitudinal relations to PTSD symptoms and history of delinquent behavior.

Adolescent and parent perception of community safety was higher in non-Hispanic White populations than in Black populations (p-values < .001). In turn, both adolescent and parent perception of safety was associated with youth polyvictimization (p-values < .001). Polyvictimization, in turn, predicted PTSD symptoms and delinquent behavior at baseline and one-year follow-up (p-values < .001). Tests of indirect effects all suggested that inequalities in caregiver and adolescent perceived neighborhood safety accounted for inequalities in polyvictimization, delinquent behavior, and PTSD symptoms cross-sectionally at baseline and longitudinally at one-year follow-up.

Results suggest that neighborhood inequalities contribute to a broad range of inequalities between non-Latinx White and non-Latinx Black youth, including exposure to various traumatic events, PTSD symptoms, and delinquent behavior. Further, both youth and parental perception of safety may independently function as a mechanism that predicts youth exposure to violence and its related concomitant. These results also support the growing body of literature illustrating that the forms of violence both caregivers and youth worry about and encounter in their community is predictive of various negative outcomes (e.g., PTSD).

Group Authors

Elizabeth Otto, B.A.; Trey Andrews, Ph.D.

Authors

• Elizabeth Otto, TAMU
  Presenting Author

• Trey Andrews