"I Couldn't Go Anywhere," Contextualizing Violence and Drug Abuse: A Social Network Study

• NCJ Number: 206848
• Journal: Violence Against Women Volume: 10 Issue: 9 Dated: September 2004 Pages: 991-1014
• Author(s): Susan E. James; Janice Johnson; Chitra Raghavan
• Date Published: September 2004
• Length: 24 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: New York City, New York; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; US Dept of Health and Human Services; Annie E. Casey Foundation
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study examined the narratives of 24 substance-addicted welfare recipients to determine how their neighborhoods provided a context for substance abuse, violence, and social isolation; relationships among these 3 factors were also examined.

Abstract

The women were randomly selected for the study from a rolling admissions pool of program participants in CASAWORKS for Families, a 3-year national demonstration project. This program is designed to help women who are receiving benefits from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and have substance abuse problems that impede employment, parenting, and family safety. The study sample was recruited from 7 of 11 national sites. The qualitative interviews obtained narratives about the women's lives, including life history, drug use, education, social networks, stigma associated with addiction, the influence of race and gender on welfare history, and social services. The focus was on social networks, drugs use, and domestic violence. Data on domestic violence and substance abuse supplemented women's narratives. All the women had used illegal drugs, and the majority were in violent intimate relationships. The study found that neighborhood contexts directly and indirectly shaped the women's social networks, which in turn were apparently linked to a host of negative outcomes including drug abuse and involvement in illegal networks. Also related to neighborhood context were poverty, lack of resources, poor education, and racism. Findings suggest that the pernicious effects of poverty can be understood through the structural violence paradigm (James et al., 2003). Structural violence involves a set of relations, processes, and social conditions that embody and produce violence. These include the perspectives, attitudes, and actions that produce the social realties which condition and stimulate adaptive and maladaptive behaviors. 72 references