Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Changes in American policing policy over the past 20 years – most notably, a shift toward “proactive policing” in urban areas – have made police officers a ubiquitous presence in many communities. Proactive policing may take a number of forms, ranging from increased rates of traffic citations, to the vigilant enforcement of disorderly conduct, to the frequent questioning of suspicious persons – each with the objective of signaling that offenders face a high risk of detection and punishment. Although a visible, proactive police presence can improve individual and population health through improvements to public safety, there are many reasons to think that aggressive police contact might adversely affect the health of individuals stopped. In New York City, approximately 20% of recorded street stops are reported by officers as involving the “use of force”. Qualitative research suggests that young men are often thrown to the ground or slammed against walls in these encounters, and may be subjected to harsh language and racial invective. Proactive police stops are predicated on low levels of suspicion, and rarely result in arrest, summons, or seizure of contraband. Individuals stopped may also face stress and trauma from such aggressive treatment in the face of unwarranted accusations of wrongdoing. The burden of police contact also falls predominantly on black and Latino youth, with significant disparities in police conduct across neighborhoods. To the extent that individuals stopped believe they were targeted by their race or ethnicity, or may be targeted again, they may also experience symptoms tied to the stresses of perceived or anticipated racism.

We examine the mental health implications of police contact using data from a two-wave phone survey that we conducted among more than 1,200 men aged 18-26, in 36 neighborhoods across New York City. Because individuals involved in the criminal justice system are generally a hard-to-reach population, respondents were selected in a sample stratified by neighborhood, with a systematic oversample of high-stop neighborhoods. This strategy was meant to ensure representation of individuals experiencing police contact; more than 80% of our respondents had been stopped by the police at least once in their lives. Cross-sectional models controlling for personal and neighborhood characteristics find that individuals who experienced intrusive stops report significantly higher levels of anxiety and trauma symptoms. In this paper we test whether these relationships persist in longitudinal models that control for mental health status prior to respondents’ most recent stops.

Additional models will examine the sensitivity of estimated effects to measures that emphasize, alternately, the quantity and intensity of respondents’ stop experience. We hypothesize that although a single “critical incident” is likely adversely affect respondents’ mental health, anxiety and trauma may also be elevated following less aggressive, but frequent, stops. We also plan to estimate the extent to which effects on mental health are mediated by self-reported stigma associated with having been stopped.