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Abstract
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The Bureau of Justice Statistics indicates that 61.5 million Americans came into direct contact with the police during 2018. Almost 47% (28.9 million people) of those encounters were initiated by police themselves. Fortunately, the vast majority of those encounters were nonviolent. Violence, particularly lethal violence, is rare. For example, it is estimated that one out of 33,000 people die as the result of police violence. However, one out of 1,000 black men die because of direct encounters with the police, making these violent encounters a leading cause of death among this demographic (especially men between the ages of 20 and 35 years). Moreover, Blacks are more likely than Whites to believe that violent encounters occur between police officers and citizens indicating that the interpretation of encounters might vary by race and ethnicity.
While lethal violence is the most severe outcome of interactions with the police, even routine interactions with the police can have profound impacts on an individual. In fact, a burgeoning literature base suggests that encounters with the police can lead to various negative health and behavioral outcomes including psychological distress, depression, anxiety, and suicidal behavior. These findings suggest that proactive policing strategies such as stop and frisk may end up having adverse--iatrogenic--consequences, even if such strategies were originally intended to keep communities safe.
In addition to experiencing direct encounters, vicarious or indirect encounters are pervasive in the United States. These indirect encounters can be proximate to the individual and include family and friends or be collective exposures that include images and videos in the media. Far-reaching examples of lethal police violence have made their way into peoples' family rooms. On March 3, 1991, the nation was shocked witnessing the brutal beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers. Nearly 30 years later, on May 25, 2020, the nation witnessed a police officer kneel on George Floyd's neck for over 9 minutes--several of those minutes after Floyd lay lifeless. Both men were Black. Just witnessing the murder of George Floyd on social media has been linked to posttraumatic stress disorder. Jarring video evidence also exists for other recent cases including Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, and Philandro Castile--all people of color.
Existing research about police-citizen encounters suggests that negative or unwelcomed police encounters are a part of a shared community memory that is passed down from one generation of Black Americans to the next...
Language: en |