As Carole Goguen wrote in her fact sheet for A National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, community violence includes predatory violence, which involves a stranger is violent or threats of violence and violence resulting from non-family interpersonal conflicts. Both of these types of violence include shootings, rapes, stabbings, beatings, and other brutal acts. As children and adolescents see or become involved in community violence in their neighborhoods and schools, this is now recognized as a public health problem. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay All children and adolescents are at risk of being involved in community violence in some way. As you might think, living in poor, inner-city areas appears to increase the risk of exposure to violence in the community. There are also other things that can put people more at risk; for example, gang affiliation and substance abuse, but nothing can guarantee whether or not a child will experience any violence. Children are not only affected by community violence when they are hurt or threatened, but also when they see it being done to someone else. Our textbook, Exploring Child Development, tells us that one-third of children in high-crime areas of U.S. cities witness a homicide and more than two-thirds witness a serious assault. Witnessing a violent act is actually a more common way that children become involved in violence. In a study conducted by the Child and Family Psychosocial Research Center, 165 children, 111 first and second graders and 54 fifth and sixth graders, were interviewed, and the number of children in some way involved in violence was overwhelming. Among first and second graders, 21% were victims and 84% witnessed at least one violent act, of which 3% were homicides. The results in fifth and sixth graders were even higher, showing that 35% had been involved, while 90% had witnessed an act, 4% of which were murders. These rates are even higher in a survey conducted by our text. This survey involves inner-city African Americans and the violent acts that affected them. Of the children interviewed, 42% had seen someone shot, 25% had seen someone stabbed, and 23% had seen someone killed. Although people tend to think that violence will not have any effect on the child if he is very young. , the truth is actually the opposite. The younger the child, the more likely he is to have psychological problems. Children who experience traumatic violence before the age of eleven are three times more likely to have problems than those who experience it after the age of twelve. Children's exposure to community violence significantly affects them not only physically, through injuries caused by the assault, but also emotionally. . Children often tend to try to avoid any discussion about the trauma, display disorganized behavior, have nightmares, withdraw, show fear, become aggressive, have difficulty paying attention, and often regress to doing things like wetting the bed and sucking their thumb. Often, after suffering a serious trauma, children become depressed, angry, mistrustful, alienated and feel a sense of betrayal, which leads them to no longer trust their environment. This is a very difficult thing for a young person to experience, because he has very little influence on his surroundings. This makes the child understand that he really can't protect himself;.