Exposure to community violence versus overpolicing and PTSD among African American university students

Lewis, Marilyn W.; Wu, Liyun

doi:10.1080/10911359.2020.1838382

Cited by 15 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Although differences narrow for other types of police contact, racial disparities persist: 52 percent of Black respondents versus 36 percent of White respondents prefer crime victimization over being searched, and 60 percent of Black respondents versus 51 percent of White respondents prefer it over being arrested. The implication is clear: Being questioned or searched by the police is frightening to many Americans, and especially to Black Americans, and thus it is very likely to be traumatizing (Del Toro et al., 2019; Lewis & Wu, 2021). This finding makes the fact that some Americans are handcuffed and searched multiple times per year only to be released without charge each time all the more concerning (Stuart, 2016)—in their psychological effects, these repeated police searches may be similar to robbing civilians repeatedly.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, even experiencing routine enforcement practices, such as stops and searches, appears to increase future depression and psychological distress (Alang et al., 2021; Del Toro et al., 2019; DeVyler, Frey, et al., 2017). Lewis and Wu (2021, p. 1), for example, found that “being stopped by the police poses a greater risk to … students’ development of PTSD than living in a violent community.” All these findings suggest that many Americans find various types of interactions with police to be traumatic, that they are afraid of those interactions occurring, and that this fear is a significant factor in their lives. What we still do not know, however, is how many Americans are afraid of the police, how fearful they are, whether their fear is for themselves or for others they care about, why they are afraid, or what consequences fear has for their social lives or views about the role of policing in society.…”

Section: Why Police‐related Fear Is Importantmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The American racial divide in fear of the police

2022

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The mission of policing is "to protect and serve," but recent events suggest that many Americans, and especially Black Americans, do not feel protected from the police.Understanding police-related fear is important because it may impact civilians' health, daily lives, and policy attitudes. To examine the prevalence, sources, and consequences of both personal and altruistic fear of the police, we surveyed a nationwide sample (N = 1,150), which included comparable numbers of Black (N = 517) and White (N = 492) respondents. Most White respondents felt safe, but most Black respondents lived in fear of the police killing them and hurting their family members. About half of Black respondents preferred to be robbed or burglarized than to have unprovoked contact with officers. The racial divide in fear was mediated by past experiences with police mistreatment. In turn, fear mediated the effects of race and past mistreatment on support for police defunding and intentions to have "the talk" with family youths about the need to distrust and avoid officers. The deep American racial divide in police-related fear represents a racially disparate health crisis and a primary obstacle to law enforcement's capacity to serve all communities equitably.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Why Police‐related Fear Is Importantmentioning

confidence: 99%

The American racial divide in fear of the police

2022

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“…Ten individual‐level studies measured mental health outcomes. These outcomes commonly included anxiety (Geller, 2017; Geller et al, 2014), depression (Baćak & Nowotny, 2020; Hirschtick et al, 2020; Turney, 2021), suicidality (Dennison & Finkeldey, 2021; Jackson et al, 2021) and PTSD symptoms (Geller, 2017; Hirschtick et al, 2020; Lewis & Wu, 2021). All such studies used self‐reported questionnaire or interview surveys, often incorporating items from validated medical instruments.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We note here that risk ratios may have been preferable given their ease of interpretation (Weisburd et al, 2022), but we did not often have the requisite data to convert reported ORs into risk ratios. In most cases, we coded ORs directly from logistic regression models and calculated the standard error of the logged OR using the reported 95% confidence interval (CI) (Dennison & Finkeldey, 2021; Hirschtick, 2017; Hirschtick et al, 2020; Jackson, Testa, Vaughn, & Semenza, 2020; Jackson et al, 2021; Lewis & Wu, 2021; Sundaresh et al, 2020; Testa et al, 2021). However, a subset of eligible studies reported mental health outcomes using continuous or ordinal measurements (Baćak & Apel, 2020; Geller, 2017; Geller et al, 2014; McFarland et al, 2019).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Police stops to reduce crime: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

Petersen

Weisburd

Fay

et al. 2023

Campbell Systematic Reviews

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Background Police‐initiated pedestrian stops have been one of the most widely used crime prevention tactics in modern policing. Proponents have long considered police stops to be an indispensable component of crime prevention efforts, with many holding them responsible for the significant reductions in violent crime observed across major US cities in recent decades. Critics, however, have taken issue with the overuse of pedestrian stops, linking them to worsening mental and physical health, attitudes toward the police, and elevated delinquent behavior for individuals directly subject to them. To date, there has been no systematic review or meta‐analysis on the effects of these interventions on crime and individual‐level outcomes. Objectives To synthesize the existing evaluation research regarding the impact of police‐initiated pedestrian stops on crime and disorder, mental and physical health, individual attitudes toward the police, self‐reported crime/delinquency, violence in police‐citizen encounters, and police misbehavior. Search Methods We used the Global Policing Database, a repository of all experimental and quasi‐experimental evaluations of policing interventions conducted since 1950, to search for published and unpublished evaluations of pedestrian stop interventions through December of 2019. This overarching search was supplemented by additional searches of academic databases, gray literature sources, and correspondence with subject‐matter experts to capture eligible studies through December 2021. Selection Criteria Eligibility was limited to studies that included a treatment group of people or places experiencing pedestrian stops and a control group of people or places not experiencing pedestrian stops (or experiencing a lower dosage of pedestrian stops). Studies were required to use an experimental or quasi‐experimental design and evaluate the intervention using an outcome of area‐level crime and disorder, mental or physical health, individual or community‐level attitudes toward the police, or self‐reported crime/delinquency. Data Collection and Analysis We adopted standard methodological procedures expected by the Campbell Collaboration. Eligible studies were grouped by conceptually similar outcomes and then analyzed separately using random effects models with restricted maximum likelihood estimation. Treatment effects were represented using relative incident rate ratios, odds ratios, and Hedges' g effect sizes, depending on the unit of analysis and outcome measure. We also conducted sensitivity analyses for several outcome measures using robust variance estimation, with standard errors clustered by each unique study/sample. Risk of bias was assessed using items adapted from the Cochrane randomized and non‐randomized risk of bias tools. Results Our systematic search strategies identified 40 eligible studies corresponding to 58 effect sizes across six outcome groupings, representing 90,904 people and 20,876 places. Police‐initiated pedestrian stop interventions were associated with a statisti...

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“…A study of 1,211 residents living in Brazilian favelas revealed that people who experience more violence have higher levels of mental health symptoms and a poorer quality of life, thus lower levels of well-being [26]. Another study conducted with college students tending at an urban historically black college/university (HBCU) reported that minority college students were more likely to experience PTSD as a result of community violence and overpolicing [27]. A US NEWS report on the impact of gun violence on children revealed that living within two blocks of a shooting negatively impacts children's mental health, leading to concerns, such as depression, PTSD, and the intentional ingestion of harmful substances [28].…”

Section: Neighborhood Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

Social, Cultural, and Economic Determinants of Well-Being

2022

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Individual well-being is influenced by a number of economic and social factors that include income, mental health, physical health, education, social relationships, employment, discrimination, government policies, and neighborhood conditions. Well-being involves both physical and mental health as part of a holistic approach to health promotion and disease prevention. The well-being of a society’s people has the potential to impact the well-being and productivity of the society as a whole. Though it may be assessed at the individual level, well-being becomes an important population outcome at the macro level and therefore represents a public health issue.

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Exposure to community violence versus overpolicing and PTSD among African American university students

Cited by 15 publications

References 41 publications

The American racial divide in fear of the police

The American racial divide in fear of the police

Police stops to reduce crime: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

Social, Cultural, and Economic Determinants of Well-Being

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