Exposure to Police Killings on Proximate and Long-Term Attitudes Toward the Police

• In Event: From Adolescence to Adulthood: Longitudinal Research on Key Factors Associated with Criminal Behavior

Abstract

Evidence suggests exposure to police killings can have detrimental effects on both those who witnessed the incident and on residents near the shooting. For adolescents exposed to police killings, evidence suggests both detrimental impacts on academic outcomes and self-concepts. We explore whether exposure to police killings in adolescence impacts both proximate and distal attitudes toward the police and police legitimacy. Data from a long-term follow-up study of the National Evaluation of the G.R.E.A.T. program (Esbensen et al., 2013) are combined with data from Fatal Encounters, an open-source dataset on police killings across the United States. Roughly 30% of the original respondents (n = 3,820; 7 cities) completed a follow-up survey in 2025 or early 2026 (mean age = 30), including identical attitudes toward the police items used in adolescence, along with added measures of police legitimacy. Exposure to police killings in adolescence, when people first develop attitudes toward the police and their sense of police legitimacy, may be particularly impactful on citizen perceptions of law enforcement and their willingness to obey the law. If so, programs that seek to repair the harms caused by exposure to police violence in adolescence may be necessary, especially if long-term impacts are uncovered.

Authors

• Steven Wu-Chaves, Michigan State University

• Grace Henry, Michigan State University

• Alex Stoll, Michigan State University

• Qinsi Zhou, Michigan State University

• Dena Carson, Indiana University Indianapolis

• Steve Chermak, Michigan State University

• Chris Melde, Michigan State University