![]() Black males represent just 6% of the US population but in 2017 were sentenced to prison at a rate almost 6 times greater than that of their White counterparts. Nonetheless, the impact of mass incarceration on Black men is staggering. As such, it is important to note that our study’s specific focus on Black men is not meant to connote that negative police encounters and mass incarceration are the sole purview of Black men. Black boys and men have been subjected to aggressive policing at every stage in the criminal justice system, 11 but so too have Black girls, women, and transgender people. ![]() In recent years, a slew of cell phone videos have captured the alarming frequency with which White people perturbed by Black people’s most mundane acts (e.g., 2 Black men awaiting a colleague in a Starbucks, a Black male realtor monitoring properties, Black people barbequing in a park) have summoned police to serve as what Phillip Atiba Goff, president of the Center for Policing Equity, has termed “personal racism concierges.” 10īlack men are the focus of the current research. 4 Hyperpolicing highlights “ both the breadth and depth of the criminal justice system’s reach health and well-being.” 4 (p46) Hyperpolicing also transcends racial/ethnic minority neighborhoods. 9 “The Talk”-a routine conversation in which Black parents educate their children, typically sons, about how to minimize the chance of injury and death if stopped by police-accentuates the ubiquity of Black people’s negative interactions with police.īlack communities also bear the disproportionate brunt of hyperpolicing, an aggressive form of policing characterized by intensive and extensive police surveillance, the “noticing” of crime in racial/ethnic minority neighborhoods, and the designation of entire neighborhoods and residents as potential or actual criminals. Relative to White people, police speak more disrespectfully to Black people, 7 are approximately 5 times more likely to shoot Black people, 8 and typically use more excessive nonlethal and lethal force with Black suspects. Black and White communities have starkly and distinctly different experiences with police. Police encounters in Black communities are a critical antecedent to mass incarceration but are an understudied link in the health inequities pathway. Our aims in this study were to examine negative police encounters and police avoidance as mediators of incarceration histories and depressive symptoms among US Black men and to assess the role of unemployment as a moderator. 6 Yet, critical empirical gaps exist about the influence of “the full spectrum of mass incarceration” 4 (p46)-stop and frisk, hyperpolicing and aggressive policing, arrest, cash bail, sentencing, incarceration, parole, and reincarceration, for example-on health in Black communities. 1 In a 2018 report to the United Nations, the Sentencing Project detailed the magnitude of racial inequities in mass incarceration: “African Americans are more likely than White Americans to be arrested once arrested, they are more likely to be convicted and once convicted, they are more likely to experience lengthy prison sentences.” 2Ī vast theoretical 3 and empirical literature documents the deleterious impact of mass incarceration on the health not just of those incarcerated 1,3,4 but also their families 5 and, in the case of neighborhoods characterized by high rates of incarceration, entire communities. Mass incarceration is a potent reminder that the historical legacies of slavery, the Black Codes, and Jim Crow endure for US Black communities. There is a critical need to broaden research on the health impact of mass incarceration to include other aspects of criminal justice involvement (e.g., negative police encounters and police avoidance) that negatively affect Black men’s mental health. Moderation of unemployment on the indirect effect via negative police encounters was not significant.Ĭonclusions. Participants with a history of incarceration who were unemployed reported significantly higher police avoidance and, in turn, higher depressive symptoms. Unemployment moderated the indirect effect via police avoidance. The results showed significant indirect effects of incarceration history on depressive symptoms via negative police encounters and police avoidance. We used moderated mediation to test the study’s conceptual model. Participants were 891 Black men, 18 to 44 years of age, who completed computer surveys. Data were derived from the quantitative phase of Menhood, a 2015–2016 study based in Washington, DC. To examine negative police encounters and police avoidance as mediators of incarceration history and depressive symptoms among US Black men and to assess the role of unemployment as a moderator of these associations.
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