Youth‒Police Contact: Burdens and Inequities in an Adverse Childhood Experience, 2014‒2017

Objectives. To assess police contact as a potential adverse childhood experience by measuring its prevalence, nature, and distribution among urban adolescents. Methods. Detailed US population-based data on youth‒police contact were collected in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (n = 2478) from 2014 to 2017. Using regression modeling, I assessed adolescents’ police exposure and the magnitude and robustness of racial disparities in police contact. Sensitivity analyses examined disparities by behavior and socioeconomic context. Results. Urban youths are heavily policed, beginning in preadolescence. Exposure to policing is unevenly distributed, with non-White adolescents—particularly Black boys—reporting more, and more aggressive, contact than their White counterparts. Hispanic‒White differences and disparities in girls’ experiences were less pronounced but present, particularly in how intrusive stops were. Intrusion disparities were robust to most behavioral controls, but not observed among youths with higher socioeconomic status. Conclusions. Given extant literature documenting adverse health consequences of police encounters, findings implicate policing as a driver of health disparities in adolescence and throughout the life course. Public health infrastructure dedicated to the prevention and treatment of adverse childhood experiences is well suited for mitigating these harms and inequities. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print May 20, 2021: e1–e9. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306259 )