By Kristin Turney

Research shows youth police contact— a stressor experienced by more than one-quarter of urban-born youth by age 15—has deleterious mental health consequences for both youth and their mothers. Less is known about how youth’s fathers respond to this police contact, despite differences in how men and women respond to stress and relate to their children. I use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to investigate the association between youth police stops and depression among youth’s fathers. Results show that fathers of youth stopped by the police, compared to fathers of youth not stopped by the police, are more likely to report depression, net of father and youth characteristics associated with selection into experiencing youth police stops. This association is concentrated among non-Black fathers and fathers of girls. The findings highlight how the repercussions of youth criminal legal contact extend to youth’s fathers and, more broadly, suggest that future research incorporates the responses of men connected to those enduring criminal legal contact. 

  J Urban Health (2023) 100: 269–278 pages

By Kristin Turney

 A family systems perspective suggests the repercussions of adolescent police contact likely extend beyond the adolescent to proliferate to the broader family unit, but little research investigates these relationships. I used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal survey of children who became adolescents during an era of proactive policing, to examine the relationship between adolescent police contact and four aspects of family life: mothers’ parenting stress, mothers’ monitoring, mothers’ discipline, and the mother-adolescent relationship. Adolescent police contact, especially invasive police contact, is associated with increased parenting stress, increased discipline, and decreased engagement, net of adolescent and family characteristics that increase the risk of police contact. There is also evidence that suggests adolescent police contact is more consequential for family life when mothers themselves had experienced recent police contact. These findings suggest the repercussions of police contact extend beyond the individual and proliferate to restructure family relationships.  

Social Problems 70(1): 2023, 256–273

By Kristin Turney

Police stops are a pervasive form of criminal justice contact among adolescents, particularly adolescents of color, that have adverse repercussions for mental health. Yet, the mental health consequences of adolescent police stops likely proliferate to parents of adolescents exposed to this form of criminal justice contact. In this article, I conceptualize adolescent police stops as a stressor, drawing on the stress process perspective to examine how and under what conditions this form of criminal justice contact damages the mental health of adolescents’ mothers. The results, based on data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, suggest three conclusions. First, the mental health consequences of adolescent police stops proliferate, increasing the likelihood of depression and anxiety among adolescents’ mothers. These relationships persist across modeling strategies that adjust for observed confounders, including adolescent characteristics such as delinquency and substance use. Second, the relationship between adolescent police stops and mothers’ mental health is contingent, concentrated among mothers with prior exposure to the criminal justice system (either via themselves or their adolescents’ fathers). Third, mothers’ emotional support buffers the relationship between adolescent police stops and mothers’ mental health. Taken together, this research highlights the role of police exposure as a stressor that is experienced vicariously and that has contingent consequences and, accordingly, documents the expansive and proliferating repercussions of police contact. Given the concentration of police contact among marginalized adolescents, including adolescents of color, these findings highlight another way the criminal justice system exacerbates structural inequalities. 

Social Forces 100(3):1142–1169.2022, 28 p.

By Alexander Testa,  Kristin Turney,  Dylan B. Jackson,  Chae M. Jaynes  

In response to the changing nature of policing in the United States, and current climate of police–citizen relations, research has begun to explore the consequences of adolescent police contact for life outcomes. The current study investigates if and under what conditions police contact has repercussions for future orientation during adolescence and the transition into young adulthood. Using data from the Pathways to Desistance study, a multisite longitudinal study of serious offenders followed from adolescence to young adulthood, results from a series of fixed-effects models demonstrated three main findings. First, personal and vicarious police contact, compared with no additional police contact, are negatively associated with within-person changes in future orientation. Second, any exposure to police contact, regardless of how just or unjust the contact is perceived, is negatively associated with future orientation. Third, the negative association between police contact and future orientation is larger for White individuals compared with that for Black or Hispanic individuals. Considering the importance of future orientation for prosocial behavior, the findings suggest that adolescent police contact may serve as an important life-course event with repercussions for later life outcomes.

Criminology. 2022; 60: p. 263–290

By Hossein Zare, Andrea N. Ponce, Rebecca Valek , Niloufar Masoudi , Daniel Webster, Roland J. Thorpe Jr. Michelle Spencer, Cassandra Crifasi , and Darrell Gaskin

Social vulnerability, race, and place are three important predictors of fatal police shootings. This research offers the first assessment of these factors at the zip code level. Methods: The 2015−2022 Mapping Police Violence and Washington Post Fatal Force Data (2015 −2022) were used and combined with the American Community Survey (2015−2022). The social vulnerability index (SVI) was computed for each zip code by using indicators suggested by CDC, then categorized into low-, medium-, and high-SVI. The analytical file included police officers who fatally shot 6,901 individuals within 32,736 zip codes between 2015 and 2022. Negative Binomial Regression (NBRG) models were run to estimate the association between number of police shootings and zip code SVI, racial composition, and access to guns using 2015-2022 data. Results: Moving from low-SVI to high-SVI revealed the number of fatal police shootings increased 8.3 times, with the highest increases in Blacks (20.4 times), and Hispanics (27.1 times). The NBRG showed that moderate-, and high-SVI zip codes experienced higher fatal police shootings by 1.97, and 3.26 times than low-SVI zip codes; zip code racial composition, working age population, number of violent crimes, number of police officers and access to a gun, were other predictors of fatal police shootings. Conclusions: Social vulnerability and racial composition of a zip code are associated with fatal police shooting, both independently and when considered together. What drives deadly police shootings in the United States is not one single factor, but rather complex interactions between social-vulnerability, race, and place that must be tackled synchronously. Action must be taken to address underlying determinants of disparities in policing.

American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Volume 68, Issue 1, January 2025, Pages 126-136

By The New Jersey Office of the State Comptroller (OSC)

The New Jersey Office of the State Comptroller (OSC) examined over 500 motor vehicle stops conducted by New Jersey State Police (NJSP) that ended with no enforcement. OSC looked at body-worn camera footage of stops that are rarely, if ever, watched—stops where tickets were not given, arrests were not made, and no one was even ordered to exit their vehicle. Most of the traffic stops OSC reviewed started with the trooper briefly explaining the reason for the stop and requesting a driver’s license, registration, and insurance. But in more than one out of four stops reviewed, the motorist presented a courtesy card, asserted a personal relationship with a law enforcement officer, or even flashed a law enforcement badge. When that happened, the side-of-the-road interactions

between the motorists and the stopping troopers shifted, and in some cases, shifted dramatically.

Sometimes, the motorist boldly handed over a courtesy card, occasionally in lieu of driving credentials, and the stop resolved relatively quickly with the trooper offering some version of “you’re good.” Other times, a driver volunteered “my dad is a lieutenant” or “my best friend works at [insert name of any law enforcement agency]” and received remarkably solicitous treatment from the trooper. This was the case even when the drivers were stopped for dangerous traffic infractions, such as driving more than 100 miles per hour or suspected drunk driving. The most serious consequence the troopers imposed in these stops was advising the motorists that they left a voicemail message for the law enforcement officer named on the courtesy card or invoked as a friend or relative. In one instance of suspected drunk driving, the trooper also warned the driver to “stay off my highway,” after reminding him how bad things would be if he crashed under the circumstances.

OSC’s Police Accountability Project initiated this investigation in response to multiple reports that New Jersey law enforcement officers’ exercise of discretion in motor vehicle stops is often influenced by improper factors, such as courtesy cards given to or purchased by motorists. OSC reviewed more than 3,000 minutes of body-worn camera footage, which included 501 traffic stops conducted by a sample of NJSP troopers over a ten-day period in late 2022. In doing so, OSC found evidence of a two-tiered system in which motorists with ties to law enforcement—no matter how tenuous—were given preferential treatment.

Among the findings:

● Courtesy cards—which are given out by police labor associations and sold by private companies online—appear to be in wide usage and function as accepted currency. Of the 501 stops OSC reviewed, 87 motorists presented courtesy cards which came from municipal police departments, county and state agencies, as well as inter-state and out-of-state law enforcement agencies. They all appeared to be equally effective at getting motorists released without enforcement.

● Motorists who asserted personal relationships with law enforcement have similarly strong social capital that often has the same effect as a courtesy card. In ten percent of the stops, the motorist did not present a courtesy card but cited a relationship to a law enforcement officer and was able to evade any consequences, even for serious motor vehicle violations. In one stop, a driver was speeding 103 miles per hour. The trooper released her after she said her father was a lieutenant. Another motorist, stopped for tailgating, speeding, and

driving over the median in a tunnel, was released promptly after he cited a friendship with a law enforcement officer.

● Many active duty law enforcement officers were observed using their official government position to get out of a ticket. Some volunteered that they were law enforcement, some flashed badges, and in one instance, a trooper sitting in the back seat of a car offered up his badge number.

● Troopers’ decisions to grant preferential treatment to motorists who have courtesy cards or asserted close personal relationships with law enforcement seem to be having a discriminatory impact. White motorists were more likely to hold a courtesy card or assert a relationship to law enforcement. Of the 87 courtesy cards observed in the sample, for instance, 69 were presented by White drivers, while Black, Hispanic/LatinX, Asian, and other drivers presented a combined 18 courtesy cards.

● NJSP policy requires troopers to request and review driving credentials (driver’s license, vehicle registration, and proof of insurance) for all stopped drivers. Yet, drivers without courtesy cards or a close relationship with law enforcement were more likely to have all three driving credentials requested and verified by the trooper, more likely to have the trooper take the extra step of conducting a full motor vehicle lookup in the computer, and more likely to be given some form of a warning.

● An overall analysis of the full sample revealed racial disparities that went beyond courtesy cards. White and Asian drivers were less likely to have all three of their credentials requested and verified when compared to Black and Hispanic/LatinX drivers. And Hispanic/LatinX drivers who were stopped were generally subjected to a more thorough computerized lookup. Most striking, troopers conducted computerized lookups of Hispanic/LatinX drivers 65 percent of the time, while looking up White drivers only 34 percent of the time.

● Out of the 501 stops that resulted in no enforcement, 232 related to speeding. At least 80 of those stops were for 20 or more miles per hour over the speed limit. Speeding is one of the common causes of traffic fatalities.

In short, this two-tiered system of justice that provides differing treatment for those with law enforcement connections and those without is unethical, discriminatory, and fundamentally unfair. It also contributes to making New Jersey roads less safe. Traffic fatalities on New Jersey roads continue to rise, with fatal crashes at the end of November 2024 already well surpassing the number of fatal crashes from the prior year. Impaired driving and speeding are some of the leading causes of accidents. Millions of public dollars are allocated to law enforcement agencies throughout the state to prioritize safety

initiatives and adherence to traffic laws. Yet for some drivers, these priorities do not seem to apply.

For these reasons, and those set forth in more detail below, OSC makes 11 recommendations and has also made appropriate referrals. OSC’s findings also make clear that regular review of no enforcement stops could provide valuable insight into officer discretion and also could reveal why particular data trends persist, highlight the need for training or retraining and updates to policies, and ensure that the motor vehicle laws are being enforced fairly and equitably. While some of the drivers in this sample had courtesy cards or asserted relationships to law enforcement, many did not, and yet still avoided any consequences for often serious violations.

Trenton: New Jersey Office of the State Comptroller, 2024. 38p.

Racial Disparities in Arrests in Santa Clara County, California, 1980

By Sophia Hunt, Micayla Bozeman, and Matthew Clair

This report examines racial/ethnic disparities in arrests in Santa Clara County, California, from 1980 to 2019. Over the past forty years, felony and misdemeanor arrest rates have declined for all racial groups, but racial disparities have persisted and, in some cases, increased. Black residents, though a small percentage of the population, are disproportionately susceptible to being arrested. In the 2010s, the Black arrest rate was 5.4 times the White arrest rate—the highest BlackWhite ratio in arrest rates observed over the four decades. Nevertheless, as overall arrest rates declined over this period, the absolute difference between Black and White arrest rates substantially narrowed. Hispanic residents are also disproportionately arrested, but to a lesser degree than Black residents. Racial/ethnic disparities are most pronounced with respect to felony arrests; the Black-White ratio in felony arrest rates peaked at 7.2 in the 1980s and declined to 6.6 in the 2010s. Racial/ethnic disparities also exist, to a lesser degree, with respect to misdemeanor arrests. We find small racial differences in arrest dispositions (or, what law enforcement does with a person following arrest). However, it is noteworthy that, across all four decades, Black and Hispanic felony arrests are slightly more likely than White felony arrests to result in release due to “insufficient grounds to file a complaint.” This pattern could suggest that law enforcement officers are more likely to arrest Black and Hispanic residents for reasons that law enforcement entities later determine do not rise to the level sufficient for filing a complaint with the District Attorney’s Office.

Court Listening Project, Report No. 3,( c/o Matthew Clair, Stanford University), 2022. 30p.

By Sophia Hunt, Claudia Nmai, and Matthew Clair

This report summarizes perceptions of policing among a racially and socio-economically diverse sample of 37 people who faced criminal charges in the Hall of Justice, a courthouse in San Jose, California, between August 2021 and March 2022. A majority of criminal defendants we interviewed reported negative perceptions of personal police treatment, but a considerable minority reported positive perceptions. Among those who reported negative perceptions, two criticisms were common: (1) individual police officers’ violence, abuse, and fabrication of evidence; and (2) systemic policing practices that are overly intrusive and estrange certain disfavored groups in the Bay Area, such as the unhoused. Among those who reported positive perceptions, some believe that, despite their personal experiences of positive treatment, police do not treat everyone fairly and policing quality varies by context and the race of the policed person. Alongside these perceptions, a handful of defendants in the sample offered visions for changing policing. Two notable visions were: (1) reallocating resources from police departments toward other city services or under-resourced groups; and (2) reforming police departments in ways that reduce discrimination and abuse. While we discuss variation along demographic characteristics in our sample, we foreground how the range of experiences and visions of policing in San Jose have implications for policymakers and future research.

Court Listening Project, Report no. 1. Court Listening Project ((c/o Matthew Clair, Stanford University) 2022, 15p.

By Benjamin W. Fisher, Ethan M. Higgins, Aaron Kupchik, Samantha Viano , F. Chris Curran5 , Suzanne Overstreet, Bryant Plumlee , and Brandon Coffey.

Law enforcement officers (often called school resource officers or SROs) are an increasingly common feature in schools across the United States. Although SROs’ roles vary across school contexts, there has been little examination of why. One possible explanation is that SROs perceive threats differently in different school contexts and that the racial composition of schools may motivate these differences. To investigate this possibility, this study analyzes interviews with 73 SROs from two different school districts that encompass schools with a variety of racial compositions. Across both districts, SROs perceived three major categories of threats: student-based, intruder-based, and environment-based threats. However, the focus and perceived severity of the threats varied across districts such that SROs in the district with a larger proportion of White students were primarily concerned about external threats (i.e., intruder-based and environment-based) that might harm the students, whereas SROs in the district with a larger proportion of Black students were primarily concerned with students themselves as threats. We consider how these results relate to understandings of school security, inequality among students, racially disparate experiences with school policing, and school and policing policy

Social Problems, Vol. 69, No. 2, May 2022, 19p.

By Rebecca D. Gleit

This article describes how the use of sworn law enforcement in American schools is patterned by school racial composition. Three distinct measures are constructed using data from the Civil Rights Data Collection and the School Survey on Crime and Safety: police prevalence, the degree of exposure that students have to police officers within their schools, and the roles of officers within those schools. Results show that police have become increasingly prevalent in schools with the largest shares of white students, especially at the elementary level. Yet youth in schools with the most Black, Latinx, and Native American students experience the highest exposure to police, and police in these schools are more frequently directed to carry out punitive tasks such as discipline. Student exposure to police is also relatively common in the whitest schools, but officers in these settings are more often used for tasks unrelated to punishment, such as teaching.

Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World Volume 8:, 2022, 18p.