NCJ Number
208105
Journal
Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse Volume: 3 Issue: 2 Dated: 2004 Pages: 1-23
Editor(s)
Peter L. Myers Ph.D.
Date Published
2004
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This study examined violence and the intergenerational transmission and reproduction of violent relationships in intimate household settings and street life from the vantage point of substance abusing women.
Abstract
In an attempt to highlight the intergenerational process by which aggressive behaviors and drug use are learned and practiced, this study argued that certain key norms and behavioral patterns prevalent in drug-abusing households were also pervasive in and constitutive of contemporary urban street subculture; that children of drug addicts grow up in home environments that socialize them into deviant behaviors and violent and abusive interactional patterns. The study focused on women and their experiences of violence, sexual abuse, and exploitation in the context of drug use and selling. Data were drawn from an ethnographic study of violence in crack user or seller households conducted in 1994-1997 in primarily African-American households in New York City. This analysis specifically examined the experiences of two female-headed households in-depth. By focusing attention on the members of two female-headed households, this study demonstrated the multiple ways through which street and home life converged and reinforced each other at particular points in time. It provided a view of the violence women experienced when crack and other drug consumption existed in their home life. In conclusion, as mothers, these distressed women reproduce the destructive cycle of violence and drug use in their children by exposing them to the cumulative effects of neglect, abuse, addiction, and violence. References