Research Paper on:
Impoverished Children and Violence Effects

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
up in the crime and violence-ridden public housing projects of Chicago had already enacted a price. The Rivers brothers had already learned to adapt to a climate of violence. A  sharp noise would make them drop to the ground and search frantically for cover. They spoke to Kotlowitz about "if" they grew up, not "when" (1991). When Kotlowitz told  the boys mother, LaJoe, that he intended a book about the children in the projects, she commented that there were no children in the projects-these children had seen too much  to still be like other children. Kotlowitz immediately appreciated the significance of this statement, and his research shows it to be true. The children of the projects, and in  fact, many children who grow up in poverty, do not have what American culture pictures as childhood-a time of innocence, when caring adults shelter and nurture a growing child  from the harsh nature of reality, giving them emotional resources for their lives as adults. These children resemble-not other American children-but rather children who have been exposed to war zones,  because poverty is so frequently accompanied by violence. It is their exposure to constant danger that forms the overarching characteristic of their environment. Both of the Rivers brothers have  regularly seen their friends and relatives die from simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time-i.e., in the path of a bullet. Kotlowitz describes how Lafayette attended  the funeral of a close friend without shedding a tear. However, this outward calm is deceptive and not in the least indicative of the boys emotional state. He seemed untouched  because children in war zones cant afford to be open about their emotions. Its simply too exhausting because if they reacted in this manner, grief would become practically a daily