The Long Arm of Poverty: Extended and Relational Geographies of Child Victimization and Neighborhood Violence Exposures

Current models of neighborhood effects on victimization predominantly assume that residential neighborhoods function independent of their surroundings. Yet, a surprising proportion of violence occurs outside of victims’ residential neighborhoods. The current study extends on recent advances in spatial dynamics and neighborhood effects to explore the importance of different geographic scales and relational exposures to poverty for child violent victimization. We examine longitudinal data on over 4400 low-income children from high poverty neighborhoods in five cities, who participated in the Moving to Opportunity randomized intervention. The results suggest that surrounding poverty matters for child victimization beyond the effect of residential poverty. Moreover, moving farther from extreme poverty also seems to buffer against victimization and to amplify the benefits of moving to improved extended (residential and surrounding) neighborhoods. All the children in the study, but especially boys older than 10 years of age, seemed to be affected by the long arm of poverty.     

Perceptions of fairness in the division of responsibility for old parents

Pairs of sisters in 50 families in which at least one parent was aged 75+ were asked in open-ended questions to describe the division of filial responsibility in their families and their feelings about it. The relationship between the quality of ties among siblings and evaluations of the fairness of the division of responsibility is explored. The argument is made that rules of distributive justice are invoked largely within the context of the projected futures of existing relationships.