Digitizing Police Brutality: The Health Associations of Surveilling Police for the Highly Surveilled

• In Event: 2145 - Health Disparity

Abstract

An accumulating body of research documents illness associations of police violence for civilians. Meanwhile, sectors of society surveilled excessively by the police have mobilized digital technologies to hold the police themselves accountable to the criminal legal system. As a form of political activism, engagement with digital technologies may have salubrious impacts on well-being. However, as a form of exposure to police contact, engagement with digital technologies may heighten vulnerability to incarceration. Using data from two national surveys – one focused on sexual and gender minorities and another focused on ethnoracial minorities, this study examines the health associations of digitizing police brutality via video and audio recording equipment on mobile devices. The analysis suggests that digitizing police brutality has a buffering effect against illness for persons with prior contact with the criminal legal system, Blacks, and sexual and gender minorities (especially those with a prior history of contact with the police). The study concludes by reframing the health risks of police surveillance through the life course of political empowerment and activism.

Author

• Abigail A. Sewell, Emory University