This study examines the prevalence of violence in a non-randomly selected p
opulation of 337 inner city school students, the relationship between expos
ure to violence and symptoms of depression and hostility, and demographic d
ifferences in exposure to and effects of traumatic violence. Students respo
nded to an anonymous survey asking them to enumerate how many times they ha
d experienced each of six types of traumatic violence. Sixty-two per cent o
f students were exposed to an average of 3.41 of the six types of violence
listed. Exposure to most types of violence were highly intercorrelated. Mal
es experienced more exposure to violence than females. Exposure to violence
was predictive of hostility for both gender groups, and predictive of depr
ession for females. Implications of exposure to traumatic violence on adole
scent development are discussed. (C) 1999 The Association for Professionals
in Services for Adolescents.