Collective Pain: Non-Delinquent Youth’s Perceptions and Lived Experiences with Police Presence, Police Brutality, and #BlackLivesMatter

• In Event: Citizen Perceptions: Understanding the Impact of Police Use of Force

Abstract

Policing involves ongoing interactions between officers and youth within racialized socio-spatial environments (Duck, 2015; Rios, 2011). Whether youth of color adhere to the ‘code of the street’ or are ‘good kids in mad cities,’ those living in hyper-surveilled spaces possess a strong awareness of police presence (Love, 2016; Patton et al., 2016). While criminology has focused on policing of delinquency, it is imperative to explore how non-delinquent youth of color perceive and experience police presence, police brutality, and #BlackLivesMatter. To do so, we conducted semi-structured interviews with youth, including a participant-driven neighborhood tour using Google Maps and a social-media tour across networking sites, in a Northeastern U.S. metropolitan area in 2013 and 2015. The sample consists of 77 boys and 73 girls, 10-17 year old, of African American, Jamaican American, Latino, multi-racial/ethnic, and other descent. While leading a hectic educational, extra-curricular, and social schedule, participants navigated deferentially racialized and criminalized neighborhoods, witnessing a variation in police presence and policing while feeling the national collective pain that emerged from police brutality against black men and boys. Youth’s experiences with collective pain and perceptions of police brutality; however, varied across gender, race/ethnicity, exposure to crime, and surveillance levels within their residential neighborhoods.

Authors

• Ana Campos-Holland, Connecticut College

• Kevin Zevallos, Connecticut College

• Denise Perez, Connecticut College

• Zoe Halpert, Connecticut College

• Marisol Flores, Connecticut College