Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
J Res Adolesc. 2024 Dec;34(4):1679-1687. doi: 10.1111/jora.13003. Epub 2024 Jul 18.
Youth-police contact is increasingly acknowledged as a stressor and a racialized adverse childhood experience that can undermine youths' mental health. The present study investigates a particularly distressing feature of youths' direct and witnessed in-person police stops-officer gunpoint (i.e., officers drawing of firearms and pointing them at youth, their peers, or other community members). We examine patterns of youths' officer gunpoint exposure and associations with youth mental health and safety perceptions. Data come from the Survey of Police-Adolescent Contact Experiences (SPACE), a cross-sectional survey of a community-based sample of Black youth ages 12-21 in Baltimore City, Maryland (n = 335), administered from August 2022 to July 2023. Findings indicate that ~33% of youth reporting in-person police stops had been exposed to officer gunpoint during stops. Officer gunpoint was significantly and positively associated with being male, unemployed, having an incarcerated parent, living in a neighborhood with greater disorder, and having been directly stopped by police, in addition to youth delinquency and impulsivity. Net of covariates, experiencing officer gunpoint was associated with a significantly higher rate of youth emotional distress during stops. Significant associations between officer gunpoint and youths' current police violence stress, police avoidance, and diminished safety perceptions also emerged and were largely explained by youths' heightened emotional distress at the time of police stops. Trauma-informed approaches are needed to mitigate the mental health harms of youth experiencing officer gunpoint.
青年与警察的接触越来越被认为是一种压力源和种族化的不良童年经历，可能会损害年轻人的心理健康。本研究调查了年轻人直接和亲眼目睹的警察拦停事件中一个特别令人痛苦的特征——警察枪口指向（即警察拔出枪支并指向年轻人、他们的同龄人或其他社区成员）。我们研究了年轻人接触警察枪口的模式，以及这些接触与青年心理健康和安全感知之间的关联。数据来自警察与青少年接触经验调查（SPACE），这是一项对马里兰州巴尔的摩市基于社区的黑人青少年样本（年龄在 12 至 21 岁之间）的横断面调查，于 2022 年 8 月至 2023 年 7 月进行。研究结果表明，约 33%的报告有过当面警察拦停经历的年轻人在拦停过程中曾接触过警察枪口。除了青少年犯罪和冲动行为外，警察枪口还与男性、失业、有入狱父母、居住在混乱程度较高的社区以及直接被警察拦停等因素显著正相关。在控制了协变量后，经历警察枪口指向与年轻人在拦停过程中出现明显更高的情绪困扰率有关。警察枪口与青少年当前的警察暴力压力、警察回避和安全感降低之间也存在显著关联，这些关联主要归因于青少年在警察拦停时情绪困扰加剧。需要采取以创伤为中心的方法来减轻经历警察枪口指向的年轻人的心理健康伤害。
