Child Ahurr & Ne&~r, Printed in the U.S.A.
Vol. 16, pp. 455-464, All rights reserved.
1992 CopyrIght
CHILD MALTREATMENT
AS A COMMUNITY
0
014%2134192 $S.OO + .oO 1992 Pergamon Press Ltd.
PROBLEM
JAMESGARBARINOANDKATHLEENKOSTELNY Erikson Institute for Advanced Study in Child Development, Chicago, IL
Abstract-This
report reviews research on the community dimensions of child maltreatment and presents a study conducted in the United States designed to illuminate further the importance of social environmental effects on family functioning. The study involves 77 community areas within the Chicago, Illinois, metropolitan area. Child maltreatment rates are related to indicators of socioeconomic and demographic well being for these neighborhoods and for the subunits within them. The results reveal a strong influence of socioeconomic and demographic factors on child maltreatment rates. A further analysis involves selecting pairs of neighborhoods for additional study. In this phase of the research the character of socioeconomically similar areas with contrasting patterns of child maltreatment is revealed. The high-risk areas are characterized by social disorganization and lack of social coherence, in contrast to the low-risk areas which evidence a stronger social fabric. These effects extend to differences in child abuse fatalities. Key Words-Child
maltreatment,
Community climate, Socioeconomic factors.
INTRODUCTION THE PRESENT STUDY is part of a program of research dealing with the human ecology of child maltreatment. This report presents a series of case studies in Chicago, the results of our efforts to identify trends in reported child maltreatment in selected community areas in Chicago during the period 1980-1986. These case studies include relating community trends in child maltreatment to economic, demographic, and social factors in those communities. Results of the analyses further illuminate the ways in which child maltreatment and professional efforts to deal with it are embedded in the enduring social ecology of the community. Results further suggest the need for large scale and microscopic research on the community influences that ameliorate and exacerbate family risk factors.
BACKGROUND Child maltreatment takes place in a social as well as a psychological and cultural context. Prevention, treatment, and research should incorporate this contextual orientation (Garbarino, Stocking, & Associates, 1980). For many purposes, this means examining high-risk neighborhoods as well as high-risk families as the context for child maltreatment (Garbarino & Gilliam, 1980). Our previous research has sought to explore the concept.of “social impoverishment” as a characteristic of high-risk family environments. The starting point was identifying the environmental correlates of child maltreatment (Garbarino, 1976; Garbarino & Crouter, 1978). Research conducted with the support of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). Received for publication May 24, 199 1; final revision received September 12, 199 1;accepted September 17. I99 1. Requests for reprints may be sent to James Garbarino, Ph.D., Erikson Institute, 25 West Chicago Avenue, Chicago, IL 606 10. 455
456
J. Garbarino and K. Kostelny
This provided an empirical basis for “screening” neighborhoods to identify high- and low-risk areas. The foundation for this approach is the well-documented link between low income and child maltreatment; poverty is associated with a significantly elevated risk of child maltreatment (NCCAN, 198 1; Pelton, 1978). The statistical technique of multiple regression analysis was used to illuminate two meanings of high risk (Garbarino & Crouter, 1978). The first meaning of high risk refers to areas with a high absolute rate of child maltreatment (based on cases per unit of population). In this sense, concentrations of socioeconomically distressed families are most likely to be at high risk for child maltreatment. In the first city studied (Omaha, Nebraska), socioeconomic status accounted for 48% of the variation across neighborhoods in reported rates of child maltreatment. We should note that the magnitude of this correlation may reflect a social policy effect. We have hypothesized that in a society in which low income is not correlated with access to basic human services (e.g., maternal infant health care) this correlation would be smaller. In a society totally devoid of policies to ameliorate the impact of family-level differences in social class it might be even larger. This hypothesis merits empirical exploration, but is consistent with the observation that socioeconomic status is a more potent predictor of child development in the United States than in some European societies (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). This is evident in infant mortality rates in some poor European countries, for example, Ireland and Spain, that are lower relative to the more affluent United States (Miller, 1987). It is a second meaning of high risk that is of greatest relevance here, however. High risk can also be taken to mean that an area has a higher rate of child maltreatment than would be predicted knowing its socioeconomic character. Thus, two areas with similar socioeconomic profiles may have very different rates of child maltreatment. In this sense, one is “high risk” while the other is “low risk,” although both may have higher rates of child maltreatment than other, more affluent areas. Figure 1 illustrates this. In Figure 1, areas A and B have high actual observed rates of child maltreatment (36 per 1,000 and 34 per 1,000, respectively). Areas C and D have lower actual rates (16 per 1,000 and 14 per 1,000). However, areas A and C have higher actual observed rates than would be predicted ( 12 per 1,000 predicted for A; 7 per 1,000 for C), while areas B and D have lower actual observed than predicted rates (55 per 1,000 for B and 54 per 1,000 for D). In this sense, A and C are both high risk while B and D are both low risk. Areas E and F evidence a close approximation between predicted and actual rates. As we shall see, this classification system can provide the basis for identifying contrasting social environments. What do low- and high-risk social environments look like? Addressing this question involves examining a pair of real neighborhoods with the same predicted but different observed rates of child maltreatment (i.e., like A and C or B and D, one high risk and the other low risk for child maltreatment). This permits a test of the hypothesis that two such neighborhoods present contrasting environments for child rearing. An earlier study supported this hypothesis: Relative to the low-risk area, and even though it was socioeconomically equivalent, the high-risk area was found to represent a socially impoverished human ecology (Garbarino & Sherman, 1980). It had less positive neighboring and more stressful day-to-day interactions for families. The current project involves a series of case studies, with four Chicago communities as the targets. These “community areas” are used by the city government as the basis for organizing and delivering human services, as well as for some data collection purposes. In general, they have some historical significance, with their names usually well known in the community as a whole. These areas were examined to select two pairs, one containing two predominantly AfricanAmerican areas, the other containing two areas with substantial Hispanic populations. A
Maltreatment as a community problem
“High”
457
Risk
“Low” Risk
0
10
Predicted
20
30
40
50
60
Rate of Child Maltreatment per 1000
Figure 1. Two meanings of “risk” in assessing
community areas.
second goal of the selection process was to identify socioeconomically and demographically similar areas in each pair. A third criterion was that the paired areas not be geographically contiguous, so that assessing the analysis would not be confounded by geographic proximity. A fourth goal was to identify areas that contained enough census tracts (minimum of 20) to permit statistically meaningful comparisons of relationships among factors, within each community area. A fifth criterion was that some common prevention and family support programs operated across the areas selected. Finally, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) had a special interest in one of the community areas (which was envisioned as the target for a planned prevention initiative). This community area was included in the study because of the Agency’s special interest, and selection of the other three areas accommodated to this special provision. With these selection criteria in mind, we reviewed the remaining 76 Chicago community areas seeking a match for the predominantly African-American “North” area (27 census tracts). The eventual choice was the predominantly African-American “South” community area (20 census tracts). Both have received extensive professional and public attention as “social hot spots.” The process of selecting a pair of predominantly Hispanic community areas proved difficult for reasons having to do with demographics and geography. Our eventual resolution was to select the “West” area (57% Hispanic) as one member of the second pair (36 census tracts). Selecting a single second member of this pair proved impossible. No one area met all our selection criteria. We resolved the problem by treating two adjoining areas as if they were one (and thus were able to meet the criterion of sufficient census tracts to permit statistical analysis of subunits within the community area). Thus, we combined the two adjoining community
458
J. Garbarino and K. Kostelny
areas to serve as our second Hispanic target area (75% Hispanic). Together these areas contain 35 census tracts and are called “East” in the analysis. In order to conduct the desired analyses, it was necessary to individually code more than 60,000 substantiated cases of child maltreatment and plot their location (based upon the residence of the child). DCFS data files were made available for this purpose. The result was a mapping of reported child maltreatment cases for several yearly periods between 1980 and 1986.
RESULTS Our initial analysis sought to replicate the earlier research documenting the role of socioeconomic and demographic factors in differentiating among neighborhoods. The results approximate the earlier studies (Garbarino & Crouter, 1978). Much of the variation among community rates of child maltreatment is linked to variations in nine socioeconomic and demographic characteristics (with the multiple correlation being .89, thus accounting for 79% of the variance). The nine variables included in the analysis were: percentage living in poverty, percentage unemployed, percentage female-headed households, percentage living in overcrowded housing, percentage African-American, percentage Hispanic, percentage affluent (coded negatively), median educational attainment, and percentage resident less than 5 years. Figure 2 presents the results of the multiple regression analysis by plotting actual and predicted rates of child maltreatment. “East” is area 1; “West” is 2; “North” is 3; and “South” is 4. We also conducted this analysis for 113 census tracts contained within our four target community areas. There are 118 tracts among the four areas, but five are empty and thus not included in the analysis. The multiple correlation in this analysis is r = .52, with the proportion of variance accounted for being 27%. The discrepancy between the magnitude of the correlation for community areas and census tracts derives from several factors related to the statistical procedures employed and to some systematic differences among the four community areas in the direction and magnitude of some correlations. For example, the correlation between child maltreatment rates and the percentage of households headed by females is negative in the two African-American areas (Y = -.33 and Y= -.07) and positive in the two Hispanic areas (Y= .38 and Y= .36)-a difference that is statistically significant. Similarly, the correlation between maltreatment and overcrowded housing is .45 in one Hispanic area and .24 in the other (this difference is also statistically significant). The higher proportion of variance accounted for in the community areas reflects the larger units of analysis used in community areas and the apparently idiosyncratic nature of the four target areas as social environments. Since community areas encompass a greater number of individuals than the census tract analysis, the estimates of the predictors (e.g., poverty, unemployment, female-headed households) and measures of the rate of child maltreatment are more reliable (i.e., stable, in a statistical sense) and thus, more likely to produce a higher correlation. In previous research (Garbarino & Crouter, 1978) a similar result was observed. In that study of Omaha, Nebraska, the multiple correlation for 20 “community subareas” was r = .90 (accounting for 8 1% of the variance) while for the 94 census tracts it was Y= .69 (accounting for 48% of the variance). In addition, the variation or range of socioeconomic, demographic, and child maltreatment measures is much greater when contrasting all 77 community areas than when comparing the 113 census tracts within the four target areas-all of which have major difficulties. For example, within the two predominantly African-American areas,
459
Maltreatment as a community problem
High Risk
Low Risk
3
6
9
Predicted Rates of Maltreatment
12
15
per 1,000
Figure 2. Actual and predicted rates of maltreatment for four community areas.
the census tract with the lowest poverty rate still has 27% living in poverty-in contrast to the full range of 77 community areas, in which 33 have poverty rates of less than 10% and seven have poverty rates of more than 40%. We charted child maltreatment rates for the four community areas for the years 1980, 1983, and 1986 to observe trends over time, As Figure 3 indicates, there are differences both in the rates and in the trends. In “East” and “West,” child maltreatment rates have remained stable during these three years. “East” has been consistently below the city average while “West” has been close to the city average. In contrast, in “North” and “South,” rates of child maltreatment have been increasing (and stood consistently above the city average). Of particular interest to us were the different trends observed for “North” in contrast to “West.” In 1980 these two areas had similar actual maltreatment rates. However, “North’s” actual rate of 9.1 was below its predicted rate of 11.1 making it a low risk area (in relation to its socioeconomic profile). “West’s” actual rate of 8.4 was slightly above its predicted rate of 7.8, making it a somewhat high-risk area.
J. Garbarino and K. Kostelny
460
25
20
15
10
5 “East”
0 1980
1983
1986
Figure 3. Child maltreatment rates in four community areas.
However, by 1986, the two areas had changed dramatically in relation to each other: “North’s” actual maltreatment rate had soared to 2 1.8 (with a predicted rate of 14.7 for 1986) while “West’s” actual rate had increased only slightly to 10.9, but fell below its predicted rate of 12.4 for 1986. The citywide maltreatment rate was 6.9 in 1980, 7.8 in 1983, and 10.6 in 1986. In terms of the ratio of actual to predicted rates, “North” had become a very high-risk area while “West” had become a low-risk area. These observations led us to address the following question: Why was “North” deteriorating as an environment for children and families while “West” was not? To seek answers to this question we undertook a small set of interviews to illuminate the important but elusive variable of “community climate.” This case study involved interviewing seven community leaders based in human service agencies in “North” as a higher-thanpredicted-abuse community and seven in “West” as a lower-than-predicted-abuse community. We used a 12-item questionnaire based on prior research (Garbarino & Sherman, 1980). This questionnaire included questions about perception of the area as a social environment, characteristics of neighboring, and morale.
Maltreatment as a community problem
461
Our hypothesis was that in the high-risk community we would observe evidence of social impoverishment in the community as seen through the eyes of community leaders that would mirror the picture obtained through the analysis of socioeconomic and demographic data. Conversely, we expected to discover evidence of higher morale, community integration, and generally a better quality of life in the low-risk area. The results of the 14 interviews supported this hypothesis. This is evident in a question-by-question analysis of the interviews, as presented in Table 1. The results of these interviews suggest that there is a clear difference in the climate of these two communities as represented in the perceptions and analysis of community leaders. The general tone of the “North” visits was depressed, people had a hard time thinking of anything good to say about the situation. The physical spaces of the programs themselves seemed dark and depressed, and to a casual visitor the criminal activity was easily spotted. In “West,” people were eager to talk about their community. While they listed serious problems, most of them felt that their communities were poor but decent places to live. “Poor but not hopeless” was the way one respondent described it. With one exception, the subjects in “North” knew less about what other community services and agencies were available, and demonstrated little evidence of a network or support system, either formal or informal. In “West,” there were more services available, the subjects knew more about what was available, and there were very strong formal and informal social support networks. The subjects in “West” also reported strong political leadership from a local political leader. The “North” subjects did not report positive feelings about their political leaders. At least in terms of this small-scale study, it seems fair to say that community leaders operating out of social service agencies in the community mirrored the problems facing the community. In “North,” the leaders interviewed described a situation in which their agencies mirrored the isolation and depression of their community. In “West,” the agencies mirrored the strong informal support network that existed between families in their community. To further illuminate the situation in “North,” consider the results of 16 supplementary interviews with clients in one of the leading family service agencies operating in the community. All were young unmarried parents. What is striking about these young community residents is their sense of dissociation from the community. Except for one participant who moved into “North” from a housing project 9 months before, all the others were either born there, or had moved there as young children with their parents. The participants had lived in “North” from 9 months to 2 1 years, with a mean length of 13 years. And yet, this sample of participants did not have a strong sense of belonging to the community of “North.” When asked, “Does your neighborhood have a name?‘, seven (44%) answered that it did not, or that they did not know what it was. Only two (12%) replied that their community was called “North.” Two gave the names of the specific street they lived on. Others gave rather unspecific answers such as “the street” and “west side.” Still other answers reflected a more personal experience of where they lived: “The hard to get along neighborhood,” and “the forgotten neighborhood.” Others gave ownership of the neighborhood to a prominent local gang. These interviews provide further indication of the serious difficulties facing “North” as a social system. The extremity of the negative features of the environment-poverty, violence, poor housing-seem to be matched by negative community climate and lack of community identity. The final piece of evidence available to us in our analysis concerns child deaths due to maltreatment. Such child deaths are a particularly telling indicator of the bottom line in a
462
J. Garbarino and K. Kostelny Table 1. Communitv Leader Interview How do people in and around the community see the area? Very Negative
Vol. 16, pp. 455-464, All rights reserved.
1992 CopyrIght
CHILD MALTREATMENT
AS A COMMUNITY
0
014%2134192 $S.OO + .oO 1992 Pergamon Press Ltd.
PROBLEM
JAMESGARBARINOANDKATHLEENKOSTELNY Erikson Institute for Advanced Study in Child Development, Chicago, IL
Abstract-This
report reviews research on the community dimensions of child maltreatment and presents a study conducted in the United States designed to illuminate further the importance of social environmental effects on family functioning. The study involves 77 community areas within the Chicago, Illinois, metropolitan area. Child maltreatment rates are related to indicators of socioeconomic and demographic well being for these neighborhoods and for the subunits within them. The results reveal a strong influence of socioeconomic and demographic factors on child maltreatment rates. A further analysis involves selecting pairs of neighborhoods for additional study. In this phase of the research the character of socioeconomically similar areas with contrasting patterns of child maltreatment is revealed. The high-risk areas are characterized by social disorganization and lack of social coherence, in contrast to the low-risk areas which evidence a stronger social fabric. These effects extend to differences in child abuse fatalities. Key Words-Child
maltreatment,
Community climate, Socioeconomic factors.
INTRODUCTION THE PRESENT STUDY is part of a program of research dealing with the human ecology of child maltreatment. This report presents a series of case studies in Chicago, the results of our efforts to identify trends in reported child maltreatment in selected community areas in Chicago during the period 1980-1986. These case studies include relating community trends in child maltreatment to economic, demographic, and social factors in those communities. Results of the analyses further illuminate the ways in which child maltreatment and professional efforts to deal with it are embedded in the enduring social ecology of the community. Results further suggest the need for large scale and microscopic research on the community influences that ameliorate and exacerbate family risk factors.
BACKGROUND Child maltreatment takes place in a social as well as a psychological and cultural context. Prevention, treatment, and research should incorporate this contextual orientation (Garbarino, Stocking, & Associates, 1980). For many purposes, this means examining high-risk neighborhoods as well as high-risk families as the context for child maltreatment (Garbarino & Gilliam, 1980). Our previous research has sought to explore the concept.of “social impoverishment” as a characteristic of high-risk family environments. The starting point was identifying the environmental correlates of child maltreatment (Garbarino, 1976; Garbarino & Crouter, 1978). Research conducted with the support of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). Received for publication May 24, 199 1; final revision received September 12, 199 1;accepted September 17. I99 1. Requests for reprints may be sent to James Garbarino, Ph.D., Erikson Institute, 25 West Chicago Avenue, Chicago, IL 606 10. 455
456
J. Garbarino and K. Kostelny
This provided an empirical basis for “screening” neighborhoods to identify high- and low-risk areas. The foundation for this approach is the well-documented link between low income and child maltreatment; poverty is associated with a significantly elevated risk of child maltreatment (NCCAN, 198 1; Pelton, 1978). The statistical technique of multiple regression analysis was used to illuminate two meanings of high risk (Garbarino & Crouter, 1978). The first meaning of high risk refers to areas with a high absolute rate of child maltreatment (based on cases per unit of population). In this sense, concentrations of socioeconomically distressed families are most likely to be at high risk for child maltreatment. In the first city studied (Omaha, Nebraska), socioeconomic status accounted for 48% of the variation across neighborhoods in reported rates of child maltreatment. We should note that the magnitude of this correlation may reflect a social policy effect. We have hypothesized that in a society in which low income is not correlated with access to basic human services (e.g., maternal infant health care) this correlation would be smaller. In a society totally devoid of policies to ameliorate the impact of family-level differences in social class it might be even larger. This hypothesis merits empirical exploration, but is consistent with the observation that socioeconomic status is a more potent predictor of child development in the United States than in some European societies (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). This is evident in infant mortality rates in some poor European countries, for example, Ireland and Spain, that are lower relative to the more affluent United States (Miller, 1987). It is a second meaning of high risk that is of greatest relevance here, however. High risk can also be taken to mean that an area has a higher rate of child maltreatment than would be predicted knowing its socioeconomic character. Thus, two areas with similar socioeconomic profiles may have very different rates of child maltreatment. In this sense, one is “high risk” while the other is “low risk,” although both may have higher rates of child maltreatment than other, more affluent areas. Figure 1 illustrates this. In Figure 1, areas A and B have high actual observed rates of child maltreatment (36 per 1,000 and 34 per 1,000, respectively). Areas C and D have lower actual rates (16 per 1,000 and 14 per 1,000). However, areas A and C have higher actual observed rates than would be predicted ( 12 per 1,000 predicted for A; 7 per 1,000 for C), while areas B and D have lower actual observed than predicted rates (55 per 1,000 for B and 54 per 1,000 for D). In this sense, A and C are both high risk while B and D are both low risk. Areas E and F evidence a close approximation between predicted and actual rates. As we shall see, this classification system can provide the basis for identifying contrasting social environments. What do low- and high-risk social environments look like? Addressing this question involves examining a pair of real neighborhoods with the same predicted but different observed rates of child maltreatment (i.e., like A and C or B and D, one high risk and the other low risk for child maltreatment). This permits a test of the hypothesis that two such neighborhoods present contrasting environments for child rearing. An earlier study supported this hypothesis: Relative to the low-risk area, and even though it was socioeconomically equivalent, the high-risk area was found to represent a socially impoverished human ecology (Garbarino & Sherman, 1980). It had less positive neighboring and more stressful day-to-day interactions for families. The current project involves a series of case studies, with four Chicago communities as the targets. These “community areas” are used by the city government as the basis for organizing and delivering human services, as well as for some data collection purposes. In general, they have some historical significance, with their names usually well known in the community as a whole. These areas were examined to select two pairs, one containing two predominantly AfricanAmerican areas, the other containing two areas with substantial Hispanic populations. A
Maltreatment as a community problem
“High”
457
Risk
“Low” Risk
0
10
Predicted
20
30
40
50
60
Rate of Child Maltreatment per 1000
Figure 1. Two meanings of “risk” in assessing
community areas.
second goal of the selection process was to identify socioeconomically and demographically similar areas in each pair. A third criterion was that the paired areas not be geographically contiguous, so that assessing the analysis would not be confounded by geographic proximity. A fourth goal was to identify areas that contained enough census tracts (minimum of 20) to permit statistically meaningful comparisons of relationships among factors, within each community area. A fifth criterion was that some common prevention and family support programs operated across the areas selected. Finally, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) had a special interest in one of the community areas (which was envisioned as the target for a planned prevention initiative). This community area was included in the study because of the Agency’s special interest, and selection of the other three areas accommodated to this special provision. With these selection criteria in mind, we reviewed the remaining 76 Chicago community areas seeking a match for the predominantly African-American “North” area (27 census tracts). The eventual choice was the predominantly African-American “South” community area (20 census tracts). Both have received extensive professional and public attention as “social hot spots.” The process of selecting a pair of predominantly Hispanic community areas proved difficult for reasons having to do with demographics and geography. Our eventual resolution was to select the “West” area (57% Hispanic) as one member of the second pair (36 census tracts). Selecting a single second member of this pair proved impossible. No one area met all our selection criteria. We resolved the problem by treating two adjoining areas as if they were one (and thus were able to meet the criterion of sufficient census tracts to permit statistical analysis of subunits within the community area). Thus, we combined the two adjoining community
458
J. Garbarino and K. Kostelny
areas to serve as our second Hispanic target area (75% Hispanic). Together these areas contain 35 census tracts and are called “East” in the analysis. In order to conduct the desired analyses, it was necessary to individually code more than 60,000 substantiated cases of child maltreatment and plot their location (based upon the residence of the child). DCFS data files were made available for this purpose. The result was a mapping of reported child maltreatment cases for several yearly periods between 1980 and 1986.
RESULTS Our initial analysis sought to replicate the earlier research documenting the role of socioeconomic and demographic factors in differentiating among neighborhoods. The results approximate the earlier studies (Garbarino & Crouter, 1978). Much of the variation among community rates of child maltreatment is linked to variations in nine socioeconomic and demographic characteristics (with the multiple correlation being .89, thus accounting for 79% of the variance). The nine variables included in the analysis were: percentage living in poverty, percentage unemployed, percentage female-headed households, percentage living in overcrowded housing, percentage African-American, percentage Hispanic, percentage affluent (coded negatively), median educational attainment, and percentage resident less than 5 years. Figure 2 presents the results of the multiple regression analysis by plotting actual and predicted rates of child maltreatment. “East” is area 1; “West” is 2; “North” is 3; and “South” is 4. We also conducted this analysis for 113 census tracts contained within our four target community areas. There are 118 tracts among the four areas, but five are empty and thus not included in the analysis. The multiple correlation in this analysis is r = .52, with the proportion of variance accounted for being 27%. The discrepancy between the magnitude of the correlation for community areas and census tracts derives from several factors related to the statistical procedures employed and to some systematic differences among the four community areas in the direction and magnitude of some correlations. For example, the correlation between child maltreatment rates and the percentage of households headed by females is negative in the two African-American areas (Y = -.33 and Y= -.07) and positive in the two Hispanic areas (Y= .38 and Y= .36)-a difference that is statistically significant. Similarly, the correlation between maltreatment and overcrowded housing is .45 in one Hispanic area and .24 in the other (this difference is also statistically significant). The higher proportion of variance accounted for in the community areas reflects the larger units of analysis used in community areas and the apparently idiosyncratic nature of the four target areas as social environments. Since community areas encompass a greater number of individuals than the census tract analysis, the estimates of the predictors (e.g., poverty, unemployment, female-headed households) and measures of the rate of child maltreatment are more reliable (i.e., stable, in a statistical sense) and thus, more likely to produce a higher correlation. In previous research (Garbarino & Crouter, 1978) a similar result was observed. In that study of Omaha, Nebraska, the multiple correlation for 20 “community subareas” was r = .90 (accounting for 8 1% of the variance) while for the 94 census tracts it was Y= .69 (accounting for 48% of the variance). In addition, the variation or range of socioeconomic, demographic, and child maltreatment measures is much greater when contrasting all 77 community areas than when comparing the 113 census tracts within the four target areas-all of which have major difficulties. For example, within the two predominantly African-American areas,
459
Maltreatment as a community problem
High Risk
Low Risk
3
6
9
Predicted Rates of Maltreatment
12
15
per 1,000
Figure 2. Actual and predicted rates of maltreatment for four community areas.
the census tract with the lowest poverty rate still has 27% living in poverty-in contrast to the full range of 77 community areas, in which 33 have poverty rates of less than 10% and seven have poverty rates of more than 40%. We charted child maltreatment rates for the four community areas for the years 1980, 1983, and 1986 to observe trends over time, As Figure 3 indicates, there are differences both in the rates and in the trends. In “East” and “West,” child maltreatment rates have remained stable during these three years. “East” has been consistently below the city average while “West” has been close to the city average. In contrast, in “North” and “South,” rates of child maltreatment have been increasing (and stood consistently above the city average). Of particular interest to us were the different trends observed for “North” in contrast to “West.” In 1980 these two areas had similar actual maltreatment rates. However, “North’s” actual rate of 9.1 was below its predicted rate of 11.1 making it a low risk area (in relation to its socioeconomic profile). “West’s” actual rate of 8.4 was slightly above its predicted rate of 7.8, making it a somewhat high-risk area.
J. Garbarino and K. Kostelny
460
25
20
15
10
5 “East”
0 1980
1983
1986
Figure 3. Child maltreatment rates in four community areas.
However, by 1986, the two areas had changed dramatically in relation to each other: “North’s” actual maltreatment rate had soared to 2 1.8 (with a predicted rate of 14.7 for 1986) while “West’s” actual rate had increased only slightly to 10.9, but fell below its predicted rate of 12.4 for 1986. The citywide maltreatment rate was 6.9 in 1980, 7.8 in 1983, and 10.6 in 1986. In terms of the ratio of actual to predicted rates, “North” had become a very high-risk area while “West” had become a low-risk area. These observations led us to address the following question: Why was “North” deteriorating as an environment for children and families while “West” was not? To seek answers to this question we undertook a small set of interviews to illuminate the important but elusive variable of “community climate.” This case study involved interviewing seven community leaders based in human service agencies in “North” as a higher-thanpredicted-abuse community and seven in “West” as a lower-than-predicted-abuse community. We used a 12-item questionnaire based on prior research (Garbarino & Sherman, 1980). This questionnaire included questions about perception of the area as a social environment, characteristics of neighboring, and morale.
Maltreatment as a community problem
461
Our hypothesis was that in the high-risk community we would observe evidence of social impoverishment in the community as seen through the eyes of community leaders that would mirror the picture obtained through the analysis of socioeconomic and demographic data. Conversely, we expected to discover evidence of higher morale, community integration, and generally a better quality of life in the low-risk area. The results of the 14 interviews supported this hypothesis. This is evident in a question-by-question analysis of the interviews, as presented in Table 1. The results of these interviews suggest that there is a clear difference in the climate of these two communities as represented in the perceptions and analysis of community leaders. The general tone of the “North” visits was depressed, people had a hard time thinking of anything good to say about the situation. The physical spaces of the programs themselves seemed dark and depressed, and to a casual visitor the criminal activity was easily spotted. In “West,” people were eager to talk about their community. While they listed serious problems, most of them felt that their communities were poor but decent places to live. “Poor but not hopeless” was the way one respondent described it. With one exception, the subjects in “North” knew less about what other community services and agencies were available, and demonstrated little evidence of a network or support system, either formal or informal. In “West,” there were more services available, the subjects knew more about what was available, and there were very strong formal and informal social support networks. The subjects in “West” also reported strong political leadership from a local political leader. The “North” subjects did not report positive feelings about their political leaders. At least in terms of this small-scale study, it seems fair to say that community leaders operating out of social service agencies in the community mirrored the problems facing the community. In “North,” the leaders interviewed described a situation in which their agencies mirrored the isolation and depression of their community. In “West,” the agencies mirrored the strong informal support network that existed between families in their community. To further illuminate the situation in “North,” consider the results of 16 supplementary interviews with clients in one of the leading family service agencies operating in the community. All were young unmarried parents. What is striking about these young community residents is their sense of dissociation from the community. Except for one participant who moved into “North” from a housing project 9 months before, all the others were either born there, or had moved there as young children with their parents. The participants had lived in “North” from 9 months to 2 1 years, with a mean length of 13 years. And yet, this sample of participants did not have a strong sense of belonging to the community of “North.” When asked, “Does your neighborhood have a name?‘, seven (44%) answered that it did not, or that they did not know what it was. Only two (12%) replied that their community was called “North.” Two gave the names of the specific street they lived on. Others gave rather unspecific answers such as “the street” and “west side.” Still other answers reflected a more personal experience of where they lived: “The hard to get along neighborhood,” and “the forgotten neighborhood.” Others gave ownership of the neighborhood to a prominent local gang. These interviews provide further indication of the serious difficulties facing “North” as a social system. The extremity of the negative features of the environment-poverty, violence, poor housing-seem to be matched by negative community climate and lack of community identity. The final piece of evidence available to us in our analysis concerns child deaths due to maltreatment. Such child deaths are a particularly telling indicator of the bottom line in a
462
J. Garbarino and K. Kostelny Table 1. Communitv Leader Interview How do people in and around the community see the area? Very Negative
