Policing Families: The Long-Term Consequences of Parental Police Contact on Adolescent Legal Cynicism

• In Event: Policing and Public Safety

Abstract

Exposure to police contact is an experience that disproportionately impacts marginalized groups, especially in larger urban areas of the United States. A rich body of research shows the myriad adverse effects of experiencing police contact, including its harmful impact on mental health, health, and educational attainment. Police encounters also influence how people perceive law enforcement. Legal cynicism describes people's distrust of legal actors and how they may view legal entities as unresponsive and ineffective. Such distrust may be a substantial threat to public safety if people feel uncomfortable cooperating with law enforcement or reaching out to them in the event of an emergency. Although prior research has documented the connections between legal cynicism and criminal activity, less is known about the potential intergenerational effects of police contact on this specific legal socialization construct. In this paper, we examine 1) the association of parents’ police contact (e.g., police stops) in childhood with the degree of legal cynicism among adolescents and 2) whether these associations differ by child sex. We take advantage of a racially, ethnically, and economically diverse sample from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a population-based longitudinal study following approximately 5,000 children born in large U.S. cities between 1998 and 2000. Mothers’ and fathers’ reports of police stops when their children were ages 3, 5, and 9 are measured as the number of waves where this police encounter was reported: never=49%, 1 wave=31%, 2+ waves=20%. The legal cynicism scale is constructed as a mean score of 6 items from adolescents’ self-reports at approximately age 15. We estimate linear regression models estimating associations between parents’ police stops across childhood with adolescents’ legal cynicism, controlling for a rich set of child and parent characteristics. Results indicate that adolescents whose parents have been stopped by the police over two or more waves during their childhood, but not at one wave, have higher levels of legal cynicism. This result remains robust in numerous models, even after controlling for youths’ own reports of being stopped by the police. We also find that these associations are substantially stronger among male adolescents. Implications from these preliminary findings suggest that this occupying force that police play in the lives of families may further estrange them from seeking help from the very entities tasked with the duty to serve and protect. Instead, these experiences may leave indelible marks on adolescents, potentially contributing to the intergenerational transmission of the message that the police are not trusted authorities. Subsequent analyses will examine whether associations differ by other sociodemographic factors, whether the stops led to more serious consequences for parents, whether the stop was experienced by the mother or father, and at which period of childhood the stop happened. 

Authors

• Lenna Nepomnyaschy, Rutgers University - New Brunswick
  Presenting Author

• Ashley N Jackson, Rutgers University - New Brunswick
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Riley King, Rutgers University - New Brunswick
  Non-Presenting Co-Author