Prevalence and Correlates of Adverse Mental Health Outcomes among Male and Female Black Emerging Adults with a History of Exposure (Direct versus Indirect) to Police Use of Force.

Anxiety, depression, and psychological distress are public health concerns for Black emerging adults ages 18-29, given their prevalence in this population. However, we have scant empirical research investigating the prevalence and correlates of negative mental outcomes among Black emerging adults with a history of exposure to police use of force. Thus, the current study examined the prevalence and correlates of depression, anxiety, and psychological well-being and how they vary among a sample of Black emerging adults with a history of direct or indirect exposure to police use of force. Computer-assisted surveys were administered to a sample of Black emerging adults (N = 300). Univariate, bivariate, and multiple linear regression analyses were conducted. Black women with a history of direct or indirect exposure to police use of force had significantly less favorable scores on the depression and anxiety scales compared with Black men. Study findings suggest that Black emerging adults, particularly women, with a history of exposure to police use of force are at risk of experiencing adverse mental health outcomes. Future research with a larger and ethnically diverse sample of emerging adults that examines the prevalence and correlates of adverse mental health outcomes and how they vary by gender, ethnicity, and exposure to police use of force is warranted.

Racialized police use of force and birth outcomes.

OBJECTIVE: To estimate associations between police use of force (PUOF) in local jurisdictions and birth outcomes of Black women compared to White women. METHODS: Using birth records linked to municipal police department data on PUOF incidents, we estimated associations between overall and racialized PUOF and birth outcomes of 75,461 Black women and 278,372 White women across 430 municipalities in New Jersey (2012-2016). RESULTS: Overall PUOF was not associated with birth outcomes of Black or White women. A 1% increase in racialized PUOF was associated with a 0.06% increase in the odds of low birth weight (ß: 0.06; 95% CI: 0.03-0.09) and preterm birth (ß: 0.06; 95% CI: 0.03-0.10) among Black women but had no associations with birth outcomes of White women. CONCLUSIONS: Lack of associations between overall PUOF and birth outcomes coupled with significant associations between racialized PUOF and birth outcomes, among Black women only, is consistent with mounting evidence that structural racism adversely affects the health of Black people in the U.S. POLICY IMPLICATIONS: The findings point to the need to address health inequalities at the structural level.

What do you see? Understanding perceptions of police use of force videos as a function of the camera perspective.

Some research suggests that video-recorded police incidents may be subject to a camera perspective bias. This study examined whether the camera angle of a recorded police use of force encounter influenced interpretation of the video. Participants (n = 330) viewed a video-recorded simulated use of force scenario in one of four camera angle conditions (body worn camera, bystander camera, security camera, all three camera angles), and then rated the conduct of the police officer and the subject. Participants' attitudes towards the police and legal system were also examined. Results indicated that camera angle did not directly impact viewers' judgment of the scenario, but pre-existing biases about the police guided their interpretations of certain camera angles. Importantly, however, this was not the case for those who viewed the body worn camera angle. These results help us understand the implications of relying on video recordings of police incidents.

An audit experiment to investigate the "war on cops": a research note.

Objectives: This study examines whether former police officers are stigmatized in the labor market, particularly following social unrest from lethal police violence. Methods: We conduct an experimental audit study, both before and after heightened unrest from police violence. For service-related job openings, we compare the likelihood of getting an affirmative response from a prospective employer to a job application from a fictitious former police officer (the treatment condition) to the response to one of two control conditions: a former firefighter or a former code enforcement officer. Results: We do not find evidence that former police officers are discriminated against in the labor market. This finding holds in periods characterized by relatively little social unrest due to police violence as well as periods of heightened protest activity. Conclusions: At least with respect to the labor market for certain service-related professions, former police officers do not appear tainted by any stigma associated with their prior profession. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11292-021-09458-x.

Improving police responses to suicide-related emergencies: New evidence on the effectiveness of co-response police-mental health programs.

BACKGROUND: Several police organizations have implemented training programs and co-response police-mental health programs to improve interventions among people in crisis. Some researchers have questioned the "one size fits all" approach of these programs and their ability to improve the management of specific psychosocial emergencies such as suicide-related behaviors. OBJECTIVES: This study evaluates the effect of a co-response police-mental health program introduced by the Laval Police Department to improve interventions in suicide-related calls. METHODS: Propensity score matching techniques were used to match 130 observations of a control group with 251 observations of a treatment group. Average treatment effects (ATEs) were then computed. RESULTS: Results indicate that the co-response program was associated with significant decreases in police use of force (ATE = -0.077; p ≤ 0.05) and transports to hospital (ATE = -0.773; p ≤ .01). Increases were observed in referrals to community resources (ATE = 0.285; p ≤ 0.01), and individuals managed through their social network (ATE = 0.530; p ≤ 0.01). CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that co-response police-mental health programs can improve the management of people showing suicide-related behaviors.

Supporting social hierarchy is associated with White police officers' use of force.

Three studies translate social dominance theory to policing, testing the relationship between individual officers' endorsement of social hierarchies and their tendency to use force against residents. This article demonstrates a link between officer psychological factors and force. Because police are empowered to use force to maintain social order, and because White officers hold a dominant racial identity, we hypothesized social dominance orientation (SDO) would relate to force positively for White officers. For Black officers, we hypothesized a weak relationship between SDO and force, if any. To test these predictions, we examined the relationships between SDO and force using negative binomial regression models stratified by officer race. In an eastern city, SDO relates to force incidents positively for White officers and negatively for Black officers. In a southern city, SDO relates to force positively for White officers, and not significantly for Black officers. Stratified by race and rank, a second eastern city shows a marginally significant, positive SDO/force relationship for White patrol officers, and no significant SDO/force relationship for Black patrol officers. Finally, testing our hypotheses on a dataset pooled across these cities revealed a positive SDO/force relationship among White officers, and no significant SDO/force relationship among Black officers. These findings are consistent with our hypotheses and suggest a need to examine the role that maintaining social hierarchies plays in police behaviors. Future research must continue to investigate these relationships, especially with larger samples of non-White officers, and information about officers' patrol environments.

Officer characteristics and racial disparities in fatal officer-involved shootings.

Despite extensive attention to racial disparities in police shootings, two problems have hindered progress on this issue. First, databases of fatal officer-involved shootings (FOIS) lack details about officers, making it difficult to test whether racial disparities vary by officer characteristics. Second, there are conflicting views on which benchmark should be used to determine racial disparities when the outcome is the rate at which members from racial groups are fatally shot. We address these issues by creating a database of FOIS that includes detailed officer information. We test racial disparities using an approach that sidesteps the benchmark debate by directly predicting the race of civilians fatally shot rather than comparing the rate at which racial groups are shot to some benchmark. We report three main findings: 1) As the proportion of Black or Hispanic officers in a FOIS increases, a person shot is more likely to be Black or Hispanic than White, a disparity explained by county demographics; 2) race-specific county-level violent crime strongly predicts the race of the civilian shot; and 3) although we find no overall evidence of anti-Black or anti-Hispanic disparities in fatal shootings, when focusing on different subtypes of shootings (e.g., unarmed shootings or "suicide by cop"), data are too uncertain to draw firm conclusions. We highlight the need to enforce federal policies that record both officer and civilian information in FOIS.

Mental and substance use disorders among legal intervention injury cases in California, 2005-2014.

Police use of force is an important public health issue in the US. Recent high-profile incidents suggest a potential link between mental disorders and police use of force, however little research has examined their co-occurrence in the general population. We aimed to assess the overall association between specific mental and substance use disorders (MSUDs) and nonfatal legal intervention injury. We identified nonfatal legal intervention injury cases (n = 90,099) and MSUD diagnoses from all hospital and emergency department (ED) records in California between 2005 and 2014. Age-, sex-, and race-standardized MSUD prevalence estimates among legal intervention injury cases, stratified by inpatient status, were compared to general US population-based estimates from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Compared to the general US population, nonaffective psychoses, mood disorders, alcohol use disorders, and drug use disorders were substantially overrepresented among inpatient legal intervention injuries (prevalence difference [PD]: 19.2%, (95% confidence interval [CI]: 18.0, 20.4); PD: 15.3%, (95% CI: 13.9, 16.7); PD: 21.1%, (95% CI: 19.8, 22.4); PD: 29.7%, (95% CI: 28.4, 31.0), respectively). Associations for all except mood disorders were similar but attenuated among ED injury cases. In contrast, anxiety disorders were underrepresented in both inpatient and ED injury cases. Results for mood disorders and suicidal ideation were mixed. In summary, MSUDs characterized by more overt behavioral symptoms were substantially overrepresented among legal intervention injury cases. Findings support the potential importance of interventions to improve treatment and law enforcement recognition of such disorders. Additional research should disentangle the complex relationship between MSUDs and legal intervention injury.

Ego depletion and the use of force: Investigating the effects of ego depletion on police officers' intention to use force.

The current study aims to investigate corresponding self-control and self-control failures that are the result of ego depletion and its impact on police officers' decision to use force. For that purpose, a total of 200 German police recruits were randomly assigned to either an experimental or control group. Ego depletion was manipulated using the "e" crossing task. Participants then worked through a video-based scenario exercise, in which they encountered a provocative citizen. They were required to indicate the time that they would take to resort to using force to resolve the situation. Results showed that ego depleted officers intended to use force earlier than controls. This indicates that circumstances that produce ego depletion could lead to the inappropriate use of force by reducing self-control. This has major implications for the police use of force and how we understand police officers' decision making in response to provocation.

Police Use of Force by Ethnicity, Sex, and Socioeconomic Class.

OBJECTIVE: Disparities in police responses to Black and White people have received significant research and public attention in recent years. This study examines self-reported accounts of exposure to and perceptions of police use of force among Black and White ethnic groups by sex and income level. METHOD: Using bivariate and multivariate approaches, we analyzed data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics 2011 Police-Public Contact Survey, a measure administered to a nationally representative sample of U.S. residents. Participants were asked a series of questions about their most recent contact with police during a 12-month period. Our analyses were limited to Black (n = 59; mean age 28.8 years) and White (n = 366; mean age 34.6 years) participants whose most recent involuntary contact with police included a street stop. RESULTS: For Black residents, being male and having an income under $20,000 significantly increased the risk for exposure to police use of force during a street stop. For White residents, being male, having an income under $20,000, or being age 35 or older significantly increased the risk for exposure to police use of force during a street stop. CONCLUSIONS: Future research will benefit from additional attention to the cumulative impact of police use of force and how experience with police use of force shapes U.S. residents' understanding of and expectations for procedural justice.

The Violence Epidemic in the African American Community: A Call by the National Medical Association for Comprehensive Reform.

While much progress has occurred since the civil rights act of 1964, minorities have continued to suffer disparate and discriminatory access to economic opportunities, education, housing, health care and criminal justice. The latest challenge faced by the physicians and public health providers who serve the African American community is the detrimental, and seemingly insurmountable, causes and effects of violence in impoverished communities of color. According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the number one killer of black males ages 10-35 is homicide, indicating a higher rate of violence than any other group. Black females are four times more likely to be murdered by a boyfriend or girlfriend than their white counterparts, and although intimate partner violence has declined for both black and white females, black women are still disproportionately killed. In addition, anxiety and depression that can lead to suicide is on the rise among African American adolescents and adults. Through an examination of the role of racism in the perpetuation of the violent environment and an exploration of the effects of gang violence, intimate partner violence/child maltreatment and police use of excessive force, this work attempts to highlight the repercussions of violence in the African American community. The members of the National Medical Association have served the African American community since 1895 and have been advocates for the patients they serve for more than a century. This paper, while not intended to be a comprehensive literature review, has been written to reinforce the need to treat violence as a public health issue, to emphasize the effect of particular forms of violence in the African American community and to advocate for comprehensive policy reforms that can lead to the eradication of this epidemic. The community of African American physicians must play a vital role in the treatment and prevention of violence as well as advocating for our patients, family members and neighbors who suffer from the preventable effects of violence.

Beacon of Hope? Lessons Learned from Efforts to Reduce Civilian Deaths from Police Shootings in an Australian State.

In the 1990s, the police service in Victoria, Australia, faced a crisis of community confidence due to a spate of civilian deaths from police shootings. In that decade, twice as many civilians died at the hands of the police in Victoria than in every other Australian state combined. Most of those killed were mentally ill and affected by drugs and alcohol, and were rarely a serious threat except to themselves. The problem was also almost entirely an urban phenomenon. Shootings in rural communities, where mentally ill people were more likely to be personally known to local police, were (and remain) almost unknown. The large number of fatalities was recognised as a serious threat to public confidence, and Victoria Police introduced a ground-breaking training programme, Operation Beacon. Operating procedures and weapons training were fundamentally changed, to focus on de-escalation of conflict and avoiding or minimising police use of force. In the short term, Operation Beacon was successful. Shooting incidents were dramatically reduced. However, during the first decade of the new century, the number of civilians being killed again increased. This article examines Operation Beacon, both as a successful model for reducing civilian deaths at the hand of police and as a cautionary tale for police reform. We argue that the lessons of Operation Beacon have been gradually forgotten and that old habits and attitudes resurfaced. Fatal shootings of mentally ill civilians can be prevented, but if success is to be other than temporary, the Beacon philosophy must be continually reemphasised by police management.

Do prior histories of violence and mental disorders impact on violent behaviour during encounters with police?

Despite sustained large-scale educational campaigns, public attitudes towards mental illness have remained persistently negative. Associated with this, recent research from Victoria, Australia, reported that police commonly associated violent behaviour with mental illness. The present study examined 4267 cases of police use of force and considered what differentiated and characterised violent from non-violent behaviours reported by police in the context of a use of force incident. The specific focus was to examine the effects that historical variables such as age, gender, prior violent offending and having a prior diagnosis of mental disorder, as well as incident specific factors such as exhibiting signs of mental disorder and substance intoxication have on violent behaviour during the use of force incident. The proximal factors of apparent mental disorder and alcohol intoxication were significantly associated with violent behaviour towards police, whilst having a history of prior violence and prior mental disorder diagnoses was not associated with violence. The results challenge traditional stereotyped views about the violence risk posed by people with prior contact with mental health services and those with prior violent offending histories. A service model that allows for psychiatric triage would be able to assist with streamlining police involvement and facilitating timely access to mental health services.

Subcultura no uso da força policial: uma análise do uso da força policial a partir da teoria das representações sociais / Subculture in the use of police force: an analysis of the use of police force following the theory of social representations

O presente artigo, inserido nas temáticas trabalhadas pela Psicologia Social e do Trabalho, busca analisar, por meio da Teoria das Representações Sociais, a presença de uma subcultura interferindo no uso da força policial, geralmente materializada na formação de grupos de policiais que utilizam esse instrumento. Tais grupos defendem que, se o policial não se impõe sempre pela força física durante uma intervenção policial, ele não consegue o respeito do cidadão abordado. A atuação das corporações policiais merece destaque nos diversos campos de estudos, pois diz respeito tanto aos indivíduos representantes das corporações, ou seja, os policiais, como à população beneficiária dos serviços prestados por essas instituições. Assim, este estudo de caso de caráter descritivo-analítico, fruto da conclusão de curso de graduação, tem como objetivo buscar uma melhor compreensão sobre a presença de preceitos subculturais no uso da força policial. Foi feito junto a uma amostra de policiais recém-formados e em processo de formação em um Centro de Ensino da Corporação da Polícia Militar do Estado de Minas Gerais. Dessa forma, partindo de análises de falas de companheiros de farda e da análise de informações obtidas com questionário, observou-se que, nas práticas policiais operacionais, fatores subculturais influenciam a conduta de determinados policiais, culminando na incorreta aplicação do uso da força. Buscou-se identificar, ainda, como esse fenômeno surge, suas principais características e as explicações teóricas possíveis para os resultados encontrados.

This article, inserted in the themes discussed in labor and social psychology, seeks to analyze, by means of the Theory of the Social Representations, the presence of a subculture interfering in the use of the police force, generally materialized in the formation of groups of policemen who make use of this instrument. Such groups argue that, if the policeman does not always impose himself through the use of physical strength during a police intervention, he is not able to get the respect of the approached citizen. The performance of police corporations deserves to be highlighted in the various fields of studies because they not only concern the individuals that represent the corporations, that is, the policemen, but also the population that benefits from the services provided by these institutions. Therefore, this case study of descriptive and analytical nature, resulting from an undergraduate‟s final coursework, has the goal of searching for a better understanding of the presence of subculture precepts in the use of police force. It was carried out with a sample of newly trained policemen and policemen in training process at a Center for Education of the Corporation of the Military Police of the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Thereby, starting out with analyses of the speeches of companions from the corporation, and from analyses of information obtained through questionnaire, it was observed that, in the operational police practices, subculture elements influence the conduct of certain policemen, culminating in the incorrect application of the use of the force. Moreover, this research tried to identify how this phenomenon appears, its main characteristics and the possible theoretical explanations for the obtained results.