Police Interactions Research Articles

Detained on Sight: The Socioeconomic Aspect of Social Context in R v Le

Reasonable-person psychological detention is an area of criminal law that has been subject to a number of jurisprudential innovations in the 21st century. This work responds to a current gap in the literature regarding the importance of socioeconomic factors to the crystallization of detention in accordance with s. 9 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The thesis of this paper is that socioeconomic factors are foundational to understanding the social context in which police interactions sometimes crystallize into detention. The socioeconomic aspect of social context reveals the way police interact with individuals in a certain space. Racial aspects of social context are postulated to be tied to socioeconomic aspects insofar as the racialization of individuals tends to occur in certain spaces – namely, high-crime, low-income neighbourhoods. The methodology of this work includes an analysis of trends in detention case law beginning with the 2009 decision of R v Grant and ending with the 2020 decisions of R v Thompson and R c Dorfeuille. Secondly, this work investigates the Honourable Michael H. Tulloch’s Report of the Independent Street Checks Review. Thirdly, this work investigates a series of studies conducted by Yunliang Meng, a geography scholar who analyzed the Toronto Police Service’s racialization of individuals as a function of space. In conclusion, this paper recommends modifications to police practices that require officers to make explicit statements at the outset of interactions with individuals which determine whether or not the individual is detained.

“Bang!”: ShotSpotter Gunshot Detection Technology, Predictive Policing, and Measuring Terry’s Reach

ShotSpotter technology is a rapid identification and response system used in ninety American cities that is designed to detect gunshots and dispatch police. ShotSpotter is one of many powerful surveillance tools used by local police departments to purportedly help fight crime, but they often do so at the expense of infringing upon privacy rights and civil liberties. This Article expands the conversation about ShotSpotter technology considerably by examining the adjacent Fourth Amendment issues emanating from its use. For example, law enforcement increasingly relies on ShotSpotter to create reasonable suspicion where it does not exist. In practice, the use of ShotSpotter increases the frequency of police interactions, which also increases the risk of Black Americans becoming the victims of police brutality or harassment. Such racialized policing facilitates the status quo of violence and bias against Black Americans. This Article uses recent cases from the D.C., the Fourth, and Seventh Circuits as a foundation to argue that officers arriving on the scene to investigate a gunshot sound they were alerted of via ShotSpotter technology should not be allowed to use the gunshot sound as the basis of reasonable suspicion and subsequent search and seizure. At the heart of this Article is the argument that the use of ShotSpotter technology is unconstitutional under City of Indianapolis v. Edmond because it is not used for a specific law enforcement purpose beyond preventing crime generally. Under the reasoning and result of Edmond, law enforcement is prohibited from using ShotSpotters unless officers have reasons for individualized suspicion. Spending more money on ineffective ShotSpotters placed in “high crime” neighborhoods across America is not the answer to reducing gun violence. As seen with Oakland’s successful Ceasefire program, there are innovative ways to simultaneously build trust in communities and curb gun violence. Indeed, properly designed group violence reduction strategies will foster and maintain dignity for participants in a program tailored to saves lives and promote community healing.

Through a Different Lens: Occupational Health of Sex-Working Young Trans Women.

Sex work is a common form of work among young trans women (YTW). Using an occupational health frame, we measured associations between demographics, sex work, and vocational outcomes in 18-month visit data from the SHINE study (n=263, San Francisco). Overall, 41.8% reported lifetime sex work, primarily escorting/paid sex. Motivations included "better pay" and "can't get a job due to gender discrimination." Occupational injuries included anxiety (53.6%) and depression (50%), with significantly higher relative risk for YTW doing multiple types of sex work. Criminalization experiences (i.e., incarceration, arrests, and police interaction) were common. Results echo calls for sex worker-affirming mental health care for YTW.

Contextualizing the Experiences of Black Women Arrested for Intimate Partner Violence in Canada.

This qualitative study was informed by critical race feminism and explored Black women’s experiences with the police with a particular focus on how issues of race, racism, oppression, and subordination inform their experiences. It sought to answer three research questions: (1) What is known about Black women’s experiences with the police in the context of intimate partner violence? (2) Given their experiences with the police, what is their perception of the police? and (3) To what extent do women construct counter-narratives of their experiences with the police and what does that involve? The sample was comprised of 25 participants, 15 of whom were arrested. The women were over the age of 18 and lived in the Greater Toronto Area and surrounding areas. Most women expressed that they had negative encounters with the police, which was influenced by the police’s negative perceptions of them. Black women who called the police to intervene in an intimate partner violence incident were subjected to great scrutiny and vulnerable to racialized and gendered police violence. Consequently, women were fearful and distrustful of the police and were less likely to seek help from them in the future. The study answers the call for research that examines Black women’s experiences with the police from their perspective. It has implications for social service providers and provides strategies to improve future police interactions with Black communities.

The thin blue waveform: Racial disparities in officer prosody undermine institutional trust in the police.

How do routine police encounters build or undermine community trust, and how might they contribute to racial gaps in citizen perceptions of the police? Procedural justice theory posits that officers' interpersonal communication toward the public plays a formative role, but experimental tests of this hypothesis have been constrained by the difficulties of measuring and manipulating this dimension of officer-citizen interactions. Officer-worn body camera recordings provide a novel means to overcome both of these challenges. Across five studies with laboratory and community samples, we use footage from traffic stops to examine how officers communicate to drivers and whether racial disparities in officers' communication erode institutional trust in the police. Specifically, we consider the cumulative effects of one subtle interpersonal cue: an officer's tone of voice. In Studies 1A, 1B, and 1C, participants rated thin slices of officer speech. Participants were blind to the content of the officer's words and the race of their interlocutor, yet they evaluated officers' tone toward White (vs. Black) men more positively. By manipulating participants' exposure to repeated interactions, we demonstrate that even these paraverbal aspects of police interactions shape how citizens construe the police generally (Study 2), and that racial disparities in prosodic cues undermine trust in institutions such as police departments (Study 3). Participants' trust in the police, and personal experiences of fairness, in turn, correlated with their perceptions of officer prosody across studies. Taken together, these data illustrate a cycle through which interpersonal aspects of police encounters erode institutional trust across race. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Police interactions and the autistic community: perceptions of procedural justice

Autistic people are a vulnerable group in the community who are regularly coming into contact with police. This study examined the perceptions of autistic adults and parents of autistic people about the autistic person’s interactions with police using a procedural justice framework. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 autistic adults and 19 parents of autistic children and adults who recalled interactions with police in Australia in the previous five years. Content analysis of the descriptions of 39 separate interactions revealed that autistic adults’ perceptions of procedural justice were predominantly negative. The majority of accounts given by parents indicated a higher proportion of positive perceptions of procedural justice for their son or daughter. Findings shed light on the barriers to fair and just treatment that may exist for autistic people when interacting with police and ways that police may be supported to respond to autistic people in a procedurally just manner. Points of interest People who believe that police have treated them fairly are more likely to trust police and follow their directions. Previous research has found that many autistic people are very unhappy with their treatment by police but it is not clear why this is the case. The research found that autistic adults described many instances of unfair treatment by police and many of them no longer trust police. Parents of autistic children and adults also talked about unfair treatment but they also gave examples of times where police were helpful. Positive descriptions often included examples of police changing the way they spoke or did things to take into account the needs of the autistic person. The research recommended that police receive training about autism so that they can have a better understanding of how to talk with and assist autistic people.

Gendered health, economic, social and safety impact of COVID-19 on adolescents and young adults in Nairobi, Kenya.

BackgroundInfectious disease outbreaks like COVID-19 and their mitigation measures can exacerbate underlying gender disparities, particularly among adolescents and young adults in densely populated urban settings.MethodsAn existing cohort of youth ages 16–26 in Nairobi, Kenya completed a phone-based survey in August-October 2020 (n = 1217), supplemented by virtual focus group discussions and interviews with youth and stakeholders, to examine economic, health, social, and safety experiences during COVID-19, and gender disparities therein.ResultsCOVID-19 risk perception was high with a gender differential favoring young women (95.5% vs. 84.2%; p<0.001); youth described mixed concern and challenges to prevention. During COVID-19, gender symmetry was observed in constrained access to contraception among contraceptive users (40.4% men; 34.6% women) and depressive symptoms (21.8% men; 24.3% women). Gender disparities rendered young women disproportionately unable to meet basic economic needs (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 1.21; p<0.05) and in need of healthcare during the pandemic (aOR = 1.59; p<0.001). At a bivariate level, women had lower full decisional control to leave the house (40.0% vs. 53.2%) and less consistent access to safe, private internet (26.1% vs. 40.2%), while men disproportionately experienced police interactions (60.1%, 55.2% of which included extortion). Gender-specific concerns for women included menstrual hygiene access challenges (52.0%), increased reliance on transactional partnerships, and gender-based violence, with 17.3% reporting past-year partner violence and 3.0% non-partner sexual violence. Qualitative results contextualize the mental health impact of economic disruption and isolation, and, among young women, privacy constraints.ImplicationsYouth and young adults face gendered impacts of COVID-19, reflecting both underlying disparities and the pandemic’s economic and social shock. Economic, health and technology-based supports must ensure equitable access for young women. Gender-responsive recovery efforts are necessary and must address the unique needs of youth.

Measuring disparities in police use of force and injury among persons with serious mental illness

ObjectivesTo measure disparities in experience of police use of force and injury among persons with serious mental illnesses.MethodsWe gathered novel police use of force and suspect injury data from 2011 to 2017 from a nonrandom sample of nine police departments in the United States and used synthetic methods to estimate the share of the local population with serious mental illness. We estimate disparities using multi-level models estimated in a Bayesian framework.ResultsPersons with serious mental illness constitute 17.0% of use of force cases (SD = 5.8) and 20.2% of suspects injured in police interaction (SD = 9.0) in sample cities. The risk that persons with serious mental illness will experience police use of force is 11.6 times higher (95% CI, 10.7–12.6) than persons without serious mental illness. Persons with serious mental illness are also at a higher risk of experiencing injury, 10.7 times (95% CI, 9.6–11.8), relative to persons without serious mental illness. These relative risk ratios are several times larger than racial and ethnic disparities estimated in the same cities.ConclusionPersons with serious mental are at a significantly elevated risk of experiencing police use of force and injury in police encounters than the general public. The disparities we estimate are several times higher than racial/ethnic disparities in force and injury. Efforts to reform police practices and reimagine public safety in the United States should address significant disparities in police use of force against those with serious mental illness.

Sexual Violence Survivors’ Experiences with the Police and Willingness to Report Future Victimization

Sexual assault is a highly underreported crime with many survivors feeling dissatisfied regarding their contact with the police. While procedural justice can improve police interactions, it has received little consideration concerning its potential to improve the experiences of sexual assault survivors. We explore the relationship between interactions with detectives during an investigation and survivors’ willingness to report to the police in the future through a procedural justice framework using a U.S. community sample of sexual assault survivors. Quantitative data show willingness to report future crimes when survivors perceived adherence to procedural justice in their interactions with the detective(s). Qualitative data indicated that future reporting was influenced by the treatment survivors received by the police as well as other factors (e.g., altruistic motives, ability to self-advocate). We discuss implications for policing practices based on our findings to improve access to justice for survivors that minimizes risk of secondary victimization.

Benefits and Drawbacks of Police Integration Into Assertive Community Treatment Teams

Assertive community treatment (ACT) teams provide outreach services to individuals coping with severe mental illness. Because such individuals are at increased risk for involvement with law enforcement, a model that integrates police officers into ACT teams (ACT-PI) was developed for ACT teams serving clients with or without forensic involvement. The goal of this study, conducted in British Columbia, was to evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of the ACT-PI model. Qualitative semistructured interviews were conducted with 21 ACT-PI clients (in 2017) and 22 ACT-PI staff (in 2018). Thematic analyses identified key themes related to the benefits and drawbacks of officer integration into the ACT-PI model. Perceived benefits of police integration were opportunities for relationship building between officers and clients, improved safety, more holistic care due to embeddedness (i.e., effective interagency collaboration between police and health care providers), the prevention of future problems, and police officers' authority enhancing compliance. Perceived drawbacks included risk for legal consequences, stigma from police interaction, escalating distress of clients, low officer availability, and the risk for changing the nature of ACT teams. Participants reported that the model of officer integration into ACT-PI teams may improve both client and staff well-being. In some communities, and with certain precautions, ACT-PI may be a viable model for ACT teams serving clients with and clients without a history of forensic involvement.

Addressing urban disorder without police: How Seattle's LEAD program responds to behavioral‐health‐related disruptions, resolves business complaints, and reconfigures the field of public safety

AbstractSince the late twentieth century, as part of a broad effort to maximize the profitability of commercial spaces and address the complaints of business interests, cities have increasingly criminalized the presence and behavior of populations perceived as disorderly. The resulting police interactions produce a range of deleterious outcomes, particularly for individuals contending with mental health and substance use disorders, homelessness, and other behavioral health concerns. Against this backdrop, we provide a case study of Let Everyone Advance with Dignity (LEAD), a novel public safety intervention developed in Seattle, Washington. LEAD diverts businesses' disorder complaints from police and 911 toward program personnel who provide long‐term harm reduction services and resources. LEAD's non‐punitive approach has demonstrated success in reducing the harms of criminalization, improving individual outcomes, satisfying business grievances, and, more broadly, disrupting the defining logic and practices of neoliberal urbanism. LEAD's successes carry theoretical implications, demonstrating the need for nonpolice alternatives to reconfigure the organizational field of public safety by intervening into the longstanding coalition between businesses and police. The LEAD model also offers insights about the concrete steps necessary to ensure public safety and community vitality without police involvement.

B-event statements as vehicles for two interactional practices in police interactions with suspects/witnesses

B-events are matters which are better known to listeners than to speakers. This paper studies the detectives’ use of B-event statements in two different environments in their interactions with suspects/witnesses. The first type of environment are relatively co-operative sequences during which the aim is the reconstruction of events and constructing the record; here, B-event statements are realised as confirmation seeking questions. The second type of environment, a hostile interactional environment, is composed of argumentative sequences in which detectives aim to determine who are the perpetrators of crimes; in these sequences, the detectives’ B-event statements are realised as accusations. While performing the two activities, the detectives signal different epistemic levels and stances at the turn level. Thus, the former B-event statements are mostly epistemically downgraded, while the latter are mostly upgraded, in order to facilitate undertaking these different activities during police questioning.

An Initial Development and Evaluation of a Culturally Responsive Police Interactions Training for Black Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The purpose of the current study was to conduct a qualitative and experimental analysis of a culturally informed police safety skills training for adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The current study focused primarily on meeting the unique training needs of Black adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A single case design was used to evaluate the initial efficacy and acceptability of a culturally responsive training method. Preliminary evidence about the physiological ramifications of police contact were also collected to begin to examine the broader behavioral and psychophysiological nature of youth's experiences. The current experimental design included in-person simulated contexts that youth, and caregivers, endorsed as relevant to their normal lives, which greatly strengthened the ecological validity of the approach.

Explaining continuity in substance use: The role of criminal justice system involvement over the life course of an urban African American prospective cohort

Abstract Background African Americans are disproportionately burdened by substance use consequences and criminal justice system involvement, yet their interrelationship over the life course is not well understood. This study aimed to assess how substance use, crime, and justice system involvement may influence one another from adolescence to midlife. Methods Data come from a community cohort of urban African Americans first assessed in childhood and followed up into midlife (n = 1242, 606 males, 636 females). We draw on interview data and local, state, and federal criminal records. Participants were assessed at ages 6, 16, 32, and 42, with additional record retrieval at age 52. Utilizing structural equation modeling, we estimate pathways between substance use, criminal behavior, and arrests over time by gender. Results For males, significant paths were found between childhood behavioral problems and adolescent substance use, delinquency, and police interactions. For females, a significant path was found between childhood behavioral problems and only adolescent delinquency. We observed continuity between substance use and between arrest constructs from adolescence through midlife for men only. Direct paths were found between substance use and later arrests for both males and females. Paths were also observed between arrests and later substance use for both genders. Conclusions Findings of reciprocal relationships highlight the critical need to break the cycle of substance use and crime and point to specific times in the life course when intervention is necessary. Findings introduce the potential role of the criminal justice system as a key intervention agent in redirecting substance use careers.

Weaponizing neutrality: the entanglement of policing, affect, and surveillance technologies

ABSTRACT Over the past decade, U.S. police departments have incorporated media technologies that promise to make policing more efficient and “race-neutral,” including body and dash cameras, drones, and predictive analytics. Such tools are positioned as unbiased and therefore reliable instruments that will hold both the state and citizens accountable during police interactions. This neutrality occurs along axes of race and affect, and presumes these technologies as anti-emotional third-party witnesses to exchanges between the state and public. In this article, we connect the expansion of high-tech policing to the racialized and gendered management of affect, underscoring how the supposed accountability offered by these technologies does not upend the disciplining of emotion. We examine the relationship between affective governance and media technologies through an analysis of Diamond Reynolds’ Facebook Live video of police killing her boyfriend Philando Castile, which we theorize alongside the dash camera video of Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old Black woman who was pulled over by a police officer and arrested, and who allegedly died by suicide in jail three days later. We argue that taken together, the videos demonstrate the ongoing racialized and gendered imperative that Black women regulate their emotional reactions to state violence both despite and because of the presence of recording devices.

Gendered perceptions of procedural (in)justice in police encounters

ABSTRACT Paramount to effective public safety and perception of the police is the public’s experiences. Looking through the lens of procedural justice, we examine implications of citizen-gender perceptions during police interactions. We expect that, despite invariant implementation of procedural justice, public perceptions will vary depending on both officer and respondent gender. We use a 2 × 2 factorial vignette design to measure the relationship between officers’ behavior as consistent or inconsistent with procedural justice and respondent attitudes toward those behaviors. Respondents’ (N = 1028) perceptions were measured based on antagonistic feelings, positive personal qualities, fear, and respect. Results reflect expectations; female officers are perceived differently than male officers despite invariant levels of procedural justice implementation in three out of four categories (excluding respect). Results strengthen the existing body of work concerning the significance of procedural justice and add to the growing understanding of the effects of gender perceptions in the sphere of law enforcement.

Examining the COMM in COMMunity Policing: Communication Accommodation, Perception, and Trust in Law Enforcement-Suspect Encounters

Since the 1980s, community policing has been embraced as the dominant police strategy. Thompson and Jenkins (2013) estimated that 97% of an officer’s time is spent communicatively interacting with the public, indicating a strong incentive to study how communication affects those involved in police interaction. Utilizing communication accommodation theory, this study examines the relationship between accommodation, trust, and overall perceptions of police. An experiment using hypothetical situations was conducted with 257 students at a large, southeastern university in the USA. The data indicates that accommodative behavior can lead suspects to be more trusting of an individual police officer but did not significantly affect their overall perceptions of police officers. There were mixed results related to the effects of consumption of crime television shows indicating a complex relationship between media representation, officer behavior, and trust. We argue that to improve communication between officers and suspects, we need to look beyond the community policing principle, and examine the key communication behaviors that help officers build trust with suspects and more generally in their communities.

(Un)masking threat: Racial minorities experience race-based social identity threat wearing face masks during COVID-19

During the COVID-19 pandemic, racial minorities in the United States were left in a double bind when deciding to wear face masks to prevent the spread of the virus: risk being racially profiled or risk COVID-19. Two studies examine Black and Asian individuals’ experiences of race-related social identity threat wearing face masks during COVID-19, and its impact on safety and health behaviors. Black, Asian, and White participants in the United States responded to surveys (S1: N = 776; S2: N = 534) on their experiences wearing masks early in the pandemic (May 2020) and 3 months later (August 2020). Across both studies, results indicated that, compared to White individuals, Black and Asian participants reported experiencing mask-related, race-based social identity threat from both the public and police, with Black individuals particularly concerned about mask-related threat in police interactions. Mediational analyses demonstrated that mask-related social identity threat led to avoidance of police when help was needed at both time points, and decreased face mask usage early in the pandemic for both Black and Asian people. Results highlight these unique social identity concerns faced by racial minorities and have implications for protecting racial minorities’ health and safety during the pandemic.

Policing persons in behavioral crises: an experimental test of bystander perceptions of procedural justice

Policing is in the midst of a legitimacy crisis. Procedural justice is a primary avenue for police reform, including when police officers interact with vulnerable populations. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the nuanced circumstances in which the public may endorse police interactions with persons in crisis as more or less procedurally just. We recruited a nationally representative sample of 569 Americans and a diverse sample of 809 undergraduates. Using factorial survey vignettes, we assessed bystander perceptions of procedural justice to encounters between officers and a person suffering a behavioral crisis, which varied in officer tactics, use of force, and the cause of crisis. Officers were perceived as more procedurally just when they employed tactics consistent with Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training. Use of force reduced perceptions of procedural justice, but use of force by CIT officers was perceived as more procedurally just than conventional officers’ actions, regardless of use of force. Conventional treatment and use of force were considered less procedurally just when the person’s crisis was due to mental illness compared with substance use. The current findings suggest bystanders did not uniformly endorse use of force by police but were more tolerant of force when officers used CIT-informed tactics and when a person’s crisis was due to substance use. Use of force against persons with mental illness was viewed as procedurally unjust, perhaps reflecting the public’s increasing sensitivity to this population and a growing dissatisfaction with police involvement as the often standard response to persons in crises.

Police harassment and psychosocial vulnerability, distress, and depressive symptoms among black men who have sex with men in the U.S.: Longitudinal analysis of HPTN 061.

The mental health impact of exposure to police harassment is understudied, particularly among Black men who have sex with men (BMSM), a group at elevated risk of exposure to such discrimination. This study aimed to identify the associations among BMSM between recent police harassment and psychosocial vulnerability, psychological distress, and depression measured six months later. Data come from the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) 061 Study, a cohort study of BMSM recruited in 6 U.S. cities (Atlanta, GA, Boston, MA, Los Angeles, CA, New York, NY, San Francisco, CA, and Washington DC). Participants completed baseline, 6-month follow-up, and 12-month follow-up interviews. A convenience sample of 1553 BMSM was recruited between July 2009 and October 2010 of whom 1155 returned for a follow-up interview 12 months later. Accounting for previous police interaction, poverty, psychopathology, drug use, and alcohol use, we estimated associations between recent police harassment reported at the 6 month follow-up interview and 12 month outcomes including psychosocial vulnerability (elevated racial/sexual identity incongruence), psychological distress (being distressed by experiences of racism and/or homophobia), and depression. About 60% of men reported experiencing police harassment between the baseline and 6-month interview due to their race and/or sexuality. Adjusted analyses suggested police harassment was independently associated with a 10.81 (95% CI: 7.97, 13.66) point increase and 8.68 (95% CI: 6.06, 11.30) point increase in distress due to experienced racism and distress due to experienced homophobia scores, respectively. Police harassment perceived to be dually motivated predicted disproportionate levels of distress. Police harassment is prevalent and associated with negative influences on psychosocial vulnerability and psychological distress among BMSM. Reducing exposure to police harassment may improve the psychosocial health of BMSM.