Police violence, criminal offending, and adolescent legal socialization

• In Event: The Unintended Consequences of Policing

Abstract

Does exposure to police violence undermine the legal socialization of adolescents and increase their propensity to criminal offending? In this article, we examine the extent to which exposure to several policing practices, including police officers assaulting a member of the public, is associated with changes in beliefs about the legitimacy of the law and self-reported offending behavior among adolescents aged 11 to 14 years. Drawing on data from the São Paulo Legal Socialization Study, a cohort-based, four-wave longitudinal survey of 800 adolescents living in São Paulo, Brazil, fielded between 2016 and 2019, we use state-of-the-art methods to analyze panel data to model contemporaneous and cumulative effects of exposure to police violence on legitimacy beliefs and crime involvement during adolescence. We find a robust association between witnessing police officers assaulting a suspect and (a) decreased perceptions of legal legitimacy and (b) increased propensity to criminally offend over time. Results also suggest that undermined beliefs about the legitimacy of the law might mediate the effects of exposure to police violence onto self-reported offending behavior. We conclude that secondary exposure to police violence can undermine the legal socialization of adolescents and increase the risk of criminal offending.

Authors

• Jonathan Jackson, London School of Economics

• Thiago Oliveira, University of Manchester