Everybody’s Problem: Violence as an Adverse Community Environment

Melissa D. Dean, Ph.D.

Research Fellow, Urban Renewal Center

I recall a day when violence felt like something that happened in distant places to strangers. I could avoid thinking of it if I turned off the news or skipped the front pages of national newspapers. The accounts of violence I saw or read evoked outrage and empathy but not fear. It was noteworthy, not routine. It was present but not pervasive. Over the past three decades, however, interpersonal violence has escalated from a criminal justice issue to a public health problem (Rivara et al., 2019), while our exposure has increased astronomically through instant and constant access to media sources. We now have intimate awareness of violent acts in everyday places—movie theaters, malls, schools, grocery stores, places of worship. It occurs at graduation ceremonies, birthday parties, and parades. Violence indiscriminately wrecks the lives of every type of person from the smallest child or most fragile of our elders to the strongest athlete or wealthiest philanthropist. What once seemed distant has now infected everyday life.

Review of ACES

As introduced in a previous URC article, Felitti et al. (1998) identified ten categories of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs): emotional abuse (recurrent), physical abuse (recurrent), sexual abuse (contact), physical neglect, emotional neglect, substance abuse in the household, mental illness in the household, mother treated violently, divorce or parental separation, and criminal behavior in household. Multiple studies have confirmed that “adverse childhood experiences in and of themselves are a risk factor for many of the most common and serious diseases in the United States (and worldwide), regardless of income or race or access to care” (Harris, 2018, p. 39).

 Simultaneously, structural racism drives the existence of adverse community environments, creating a “pair of aces” that “produce complex trauma felt at the individual, family, and population levels” (Ellis et al., 2022). The second ACEs in the pair include poverty; discrimination; community disruption; lack of opportunity, economic mobility & social capital; poor housing quality & affordability; and violence (Ellis et al., 2022). This article is the second in a series intended examine our local community in each of these areas and a step toward assessing our community’s overall health. We can then target specific areas of need and begin to mediate the effects of the pair of ACES on individuals, families, and the community itself. This article specifically examines the myriad effects of violence on communities in general and in the 757 specifically.

Violence

The Forty-ninth World Health Assembly noted “with great concern” that the incidence of intentional injuries that affect people of all ages and genders—especially women and children—has  increased dramatically worldwide, prompting them to declare violence a “leading worldwide public health problem.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified community violence as “a critical health problem in the United States” and clarified that “[c]ommunity violence happens between unrelated individuals who may or may not know each other, generally outside the home.”

The World Report on Violence and Health (WRVH) defined violence as “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation.” Intent is a key component of the definition, emphasizing that a “person or group must intend to use force or power against another person or group in order for an act to be classified as violent” and distinguishing violence from injury or harm resulting from unintended actions and incidents (Rutherford et al., 2007).

The WRVH identified three categories of violence—self-directed, interpersonal, and collective—and then divided those into additional categories depicted by the following typology.

The CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention (DVP) declared a mission “to prevent violence and its consequences so that all people, families, and communities are safe, healthy and free of violence.” Violence interventions are classified as universal (intended for the general population), selective or targeted (focused on those with heightened risk of violence), and indicated (focused on high risk individuals with detectable problems) (Rutherford et al., 2007). Because violence is one of the elements of adverse community environments, the prevention and intervention of violence are critical components of creating resilient communities and a responsibility of each member of the beloved community the URC seeks to build in Hampton Roads.

Overview of Violence in Hampton Roads
The site of two mass shootings in the past five years—one at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center in 2019 and one at a Chesapeake Walmart in 2022—the Hampton Roads area has unfortunately become a community intimately affected by violence at all levels of society. Recent headlines paint a disturbing picture of crime in Norfolk. In October 2022, 13 News Now reported that “Norfolk’s rising homicide rate ranks as 8th worst in the nation.” This past March, Jim Morrison of The Virginia Mercury declared, “Violent crime in Norfolk is up. The jury is still out on why—and what to do about it.” That same month Wavy’s Regina Mobley identified “A generation at risk due to gun violence.” Guns were found in a Norfolk high school, middle school, and elementary school this school year.

 According to Neighborhood Scout, Norfolk’s total crime index makes it safer than only 4% of U.S. neighborhoods. Its crime rate of 42 per one thousand residents is one of the highest in America, regardless of community size. A person has a one in 24 chance of being a victim of violent or property crime in Norfolk. More than 99% of communities in Virginia have lower crime rates than Norfolk.

When that statistic was examined specifically for violent crimes, Norfolk had one of the highest violent crime rates in the nation. Neighborhood Scout defined violent offenses as rape, murder and non-negligent manslaughter, armed robbery, and aggravated assault (including assault with a deadly weapon) and concluded that an individual has a one in 128 chance of becoming a victim of one of these crimes in Norfolk, according to an analysis of FBI reported crime data.

Accessing Hampton Roads Crime Data
An informed populace is an empowered populace. Citizens can utilize a Norfolk government interactive crime map that allows them to “search the City of Norfolk by address, landmark, or zip code for certain types of crimes that have occurred over the previous 90 days.” They can also sign up to receive crime alerts from CrimeMapping.  In addition, Norfolk city data can be accessed through an open data portal, and the Norfolk Police Data Hub provides the public with interactive access to five years of police data. The City of Chesapeake offers a similar public database, and Virginia Beach recently released its 2022 crime statistics through Wavy News. Neighborhood Scout and City Data also provide Hampton Roads statistics by specific neighborhoods and zip codes.

Violence as an Adverse Community Environment
Ellis et al. (2022) recognized the overwhelming effects of violence on entire communities, identifying it as one of the six adverse community environments, the second pair of ACEs. According to the CDC, not only can community violence cause “significant physical injuries and mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD),” but simply living in a community that experiences violence is associated with “increased risk of developing chronic diseases.” Additionally, “concerns about violence may prevent some people from engaging in healthy behaviors such as walking, using parks and recreational spaces, and accessing healthy food outlets” (CDC). Lorion & Blank (2015) described “exposure to pervasive community violence (PCV) and liken its effects to other environmental toxins that can be fatal with direct contact and indirectly corrode physical, psychosocial, and emotional well-being of such ecologies” (p. 105). Violence is currently one of the leading causes of death for children and adolescents in the United States. The CDC recognizes that young people can be victims, perpetrators, or witnesses of violent acts and that individuals with “multiple adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), including exposure to violence, are more likely to have short-term and chronic physical and mental health conditions and behavioral difficulties.”

Building Community Resilience in a Violent Society
Violence touches every member of a community whether they are aware of its impact or not. Lorion & Blank (2015) argued that “PCV exposure has become a characteristic of the environments in which many children, adolescents, and adults (teachers, parents, and citizens) live, work, study, and play across the world” (p. 106). As the CDC summarized, “Violence scares people out of participating in neighborhood activities; limits business growth and prosperity; strains education, justice, and medical systems; and slows community progress.” Mitigating the effects of violence must be central in any effort to build community resilience. Ellis et al. (2022) defined community resilience as “(1) the sustained ability of community systems to prepare for, withstand, and recover from acute shocks while addressing and preventing the chronic adverse effects of structural racism, and (2) a community’s ability to cope, strive, and be supported through equitable access to buffers that address and relieve sources of chronic stress and acute adversity” (p. 19).

Because pervasive community violence negatively alters “the essence of community life,” broadly disrupting its functioning and impairing its general physical and emotional health,” it demands community partnerships to understand and work to alter its effects, such as through Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) and resulting CBPR activities (Lorion & Blank, 2015, p. 106). To reduce and prevent community violence, solutions must address each of the four factors that contribute to violence: individual, relationship, community, and societal. The Urban Youth Trauma Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago has developed training materials that address each of these factors and identify five best practices for violence prevention and trauma intervention.

The University of Illinois Center recognizes that “[c]ommunity violence is everyone’s business because not a single person in a community is left unaffected by the deleterious effects that violence leaves behind.” If the Hampton Roads community hopes to stack the deck for a resilient community, we must recognize that violence is everybody’s problem and commit to acknowledging its impact, studying how it manifests in our specific area, and collaborating on research-based prevention and intervention programs in order to build a beloved community that is safe for all.

References Not Linked Directly in Article

Harris, N.B., (2018). The deepest well: Healing the long-term effects of childhood adversity. Mariner.

Lorion, R.P., & Blank, M. B. (2015). Violence as a public health problem. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd Edition. 25, 105-110. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.14050-4