Developing the Policed Stranger Identity: Strategies Navigating Legal Estrangement and Legal Cynicism in Latino Neighborhoods

• In Event: Minority Fellowship Program (MFP) Research Session I

Abstract

Legal estrangement is a theory of detachment and alienation from law enforcers that is pervasive in communities of color. Three sociolegal processes contribute to the development of legal estrangement: procedural injustice, vicarious marginalization, and structural exclusion. No studies to date have utilized legal estrangement to examine the processes through which larger structural patterns perpetuate the legal marginalization of Latinos. This project draws on 64 interviews with Latino men and women in Riverside, California, to explore working-class Latino experiences with police in economically and politically marginalized neighborhoods. This study uses legal estrangement as a framework to deepen our understanding of how policing logics exacerbate distrust and skepticism toward law enforcement in the Latino community, an area of study that remains underexplored in sociological scholarship. This research identifies nuances shaping Latino-police relations, showing how marginalization is produced through ongoing processes and how residents adapt to these conditions through everyday practices. By centering on the unique histories and policing experiences of multiple generations of Latinos, this study provides an innovative, multi-layered portrait that reflects broader dynamics in comparable cities and regions in the US.

Author

• Humberto Flores, University of California-Santa Barbara