Normalization of Violence: Experiences of Childhood Abuse by Inner-City Crack Users

• NCJ Number: 226826
• Journal: Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse Volume: 8 Issue: 1 Dated: January-March 2009 Pages: 15-34
• Author(s): Eloise Dunlap; Andrew Golub; Bruce D. Johnson; Ellen Benoit
• Date Published: March 2009
• Length: 20 pages
• Grant Number(s): R01 DA09056; R01 DA013690
• Sponsoring Agency: National Institute on Drug Abuse
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study used ethnographic data in identifying the processes and context for the link between childhood physical abuse (CPA) and substance abuse in adulthood (ASA) for one population, i.e., poor, inner-city New York residents who became crack users.

Abstract

Data indicate that numerous factors contributed to the eventual crack use and crack-related problems of the 178 participants from 72 families living in inner-city New York. Approximately half of the subjects reported clear recollections of being physically beaten by their mothers or the male partners of their mothers. Although several denied being beaten as children, they reported various forms of physical assault they interpreted as being “deserved.” Physical assaults, especially by their mothers, were often viewed as expressions of love and a normal part of childhood and adolescence. Another central factor in the lives of the subjects was entering adulthood in the inner city during the 1980s at the peak of the crack era. Another key variable in the lives of the subjects was living in poverty in the inner city with its numerous attendant problems. In the environment of the inner city, streets, fights, drug use and sales, and residents’ interaction with police were constant. Subcultural norms in the household were reflected in subcultural norms in the neighborhood and vice versa. What is interpreted as CPA and ASA from outside the subcultural norms of the inner city is interpreted by individuals who have grown up in the inner city as norms of daily living and experiences. Thus, the pathway to drug abuse is likely to be complex, multifaceted, and embedded within prevailing subcultural norms in the family/neighborhood in which a child comes of age. The authors were involved in a series of longitudinal ethnographic studies of drug abuse, violence, and family functioning in inner-city New York. 41 references