Associations between Experiences of Police Contact and Discrimination by the Police and Courts and Health Outcomes in a Representative Sample of Adults in New York City

Azure Thompson,Marné Garretson,Devin English,Michele Calvo,Simone Martin-Howard,María Baquero,Diksha Brahmbhatt,Tawandra Rowell-Cunsolo

doi:10.1007/s11524-021-00583-6

Abstract

Communities marginalized because of racism, heterosexism, and other systems of oppression have a history of being aggressively policed, and in those contexts, researchers have observed associations between a range of negative experiences with police and poor physical, mental, and behavioral health outcomes. However, past studies have been limited in that experiences of police contacts were aggregated at the neighborhood level and, if police contacts were self-reported, the sample was not representative. To address these limitations, we employed NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene 2017 Social Determinants of Health Survey (n = 2335) data to examine the associations of self-reported police contacts and discrimination by police and the courts with measures of physical (poor physical health), mental (poor mental health, serious psychological distress), and behavioral health (binge drinking). Residents marginalized because of racial, ethnic, and sexual minority status were more likely to be stopped, searched, or questioned by the police; threatened or abused by the police; and discriminated against by the police or in the courts; those experiences were associated with poor physical, mental, and behavioral health outcomes. The associations between experiences with police and poor health outcomes were strongest among Black residents and residents aged 25–44. Our findings suggest that the health of NYC residents who have had exposure to police and experienced discrimination by the police and courts is poorer than those who have not, and build on a growing body of evidence that aggressive policing practices have implications for public health.

Highlights

Communities marginalized because of racism, heterosexism, and other systems of oppression in New York City (NYC), and other large urban areas in the United States (US), have experienced a long history of aggressive policing [1,2,3]
We found that gay, lesbian, and bisexual New Yorkers were more likely to report being stopped by police than heterosexual New Yorkers and Black New Yorkers were more likely to report being abused by police and experience racial discrimination by the police or in courts than White New Yorkers
Public policies related to the criminal legal system in the US inequitably impact the health of socially marginalized communities

Summary

Introduction

Communities marginalized because of racism, heterosexism, and other systems of oppression in New York City (NYC), and other large urban areas in the United States (US), have experienced a long history of aggressive policing [1,2,3]. Aggressive policing is a practice in which pedestrians are stopped for low-level offenses or suspicion of an offense with the intention of preventing more serious crime [3]. The conceptual origin of aggressive policing practices is the Broken Windows Theory developed by social scientists George Kelling and James Wilson and introduced in The Atlantic magazine in 1982 [4]. QOL policing targeted low-level, nonviolent offenses for which a person could be arrested or issued a summons [5], both requiring adjudication in the court. Another aggressive policing practice is stop, question and frisk (SQF). In 2013, this practice in NYC was found by a federal judge to be unconstitutional and racially discriminatory [6]

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