Social, health and ethnicity correlates of complaints of excessive police force

IF 1.1 4区医学 Q3 CRIMINOLOGY & PENOLOGY

Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health Pub Date : 2022-08-08 DOI:10.1002/cbm.2255

Sven Smith, Christopher J. Ferguson, Claudia E. San Miguel, Marcus Antonius Ynalvez, Howard Henderson

{"title":"Social, health and ethnicity correlates of complaints of excessive police force","authors":"Sven Smith, Christopher J. Ferguson, Claudia E. San Miguel, Marcus Antonius Ynalvez, Howard Henderson","doi":"10.1002/cbm.2255","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div>\n \n \n <section>\n \n <h3> Background</h3>\n \n <p>Following several high-profile police shootings of Black Americans, renewed debate has focused on race as a predictor of police violence. Past research has been inconsistent on this score. Some scholars argue that socioeconomic issues are better predictors of police-related violence than are race and ethnicity.</p>\n </section>\n \n <section>\n \n <h3> Aims</h3>\n \n <p>To test relationships between complaints of excessive use of police violence and racial/ethnic population demographics, allowing for social and mental health variables.</p>\n </section>\n \n <section>\n \n <h3> Methods</h3>\n \n <p>We examined records from all 195 municipal police departments in California to identify complaints of excessive force by police and tested for associations between such complaints and health, socio-economic and demographic data from county records, using multivariate analyses.</p>\n </section>\n \n <section>\n \n <h3> Results</h3>\n \n <p>There was no difference in reporting between communities according to Black or White American residency proportions; communities with more Latino Americans were less likely to complain formally of excessive use of police force. The strongest associate of complaints to police departments that their employees had used excessive force was experiencing mental distress in the community.</p>\n </section>\n \n <section>\n \n <h3> Conclusions</h3>\n \n <p>Our findings are limited by reliance on complaints to police authorities rather than actual incidence of police use of excessive force and by having to map municipal data on to county data, but the finding that factors other than or in addition to any inherent police problems may contribute to excessive use of force by the police offers new lines for remedying the problem. In particular, our findings suggest that more training for police in recognising and managing mental distress and more provision of mental health experts to work alongside police would be worth evaluating as a next step.</p>\n </section>\n </div>","PeriodicalId":47362,"journal":{"name":"Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health","volume":"32 4","pages":"284-294"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2022-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cbm.2255","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"CRIMINOLOGY & PENOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 1

Abstract

Background

Following several high-profile police shootings of Black Americans, renewed debate has focused on race as a predictor of police violence. Past research has been inconsistent on this score. Some scholars argue that socioeconomic issues are better predictors of police-related violence than are race and ethnicity.

Aims

To test relationships between complaints of excessive use of police violence and racial/ethnic population demographics, allowing for social and mental health variables.

Methods

We examined records from all 195 municipal police departments in California to identify complaints of excessive force by police and tested for associations between such complaints and health, socio-economic and demographic data from county records, using multivariate analyses.

Results

There was no difference in reporting between communities according to Black or White American residency proportions; communities with more Latino Americans were less likely to complain formally of excessive use of police force. The strongest associate of complaints to police departments that their employees had used excessive force was experiencing mental distress in the community.

Conclusions

Our findings are limited by reliance on complaints to police authorities rather than actual incidence of police use of excessive force and by having to map municipal data on to county data, but the finding that factors other than or in addition to any inherent police problems may contribute to excessive use of force by the police offers new lines for remedying the problem. In particular, our findings suggest that more training for police in recognising and managing mental distress and more provision of mental health experts to work alongside police would be worth evaluating as a next step.

查看原文本刊更多论文

社会、健康和种族因素与警察力量过度的投诉有关

在几起备受瞩目的警察枪杀美国黑人事件之后，关于种族是否预示着警察暴力的争论重新开始。过去的研究在这一点上并不一致。一些学者认为，社会经济问题比种族和民族问题更能预测与警察有关的暴力。目的在考虑到社会和心理健康变量的情况下，检验对警察过度使用暴力的投诉与种族/族裔人口统计之间的关系。方法:我们检查了加州所有195个城市警察部门的记录，以确定警察过度使用武力的投诉，并使用多变量分析测试了这些投诉与县记录中的健康、社会经济和人口统计数据之间的关联。结果美国黑人和白人居住比例在不同社区间的报告没有差异;拉丁裔美国人较多的社区不太可能正式抱怨警察过度使用武力。向警察部门投诉其雇员过度使用武力的最强烈的同伙是在社区中遭受精神痛苦。结论:我们的研究结果受限于对警察当局的投诉，而不是警察过度使用武力的实际发生率，并且必须将市政数据映射到县数据，但是除了任何固有的警察问题之外的其他因素可能导致警察过度使用武力，这一发现为纠正这一问题提供了新的途径。特别是，我们的研究结果表明，下一步值得对警察进行更多的培训，以识别和管理精神痛苦，并提供更多的精神健康专家与警察一起工作。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health Multiple-

CiteScore

1.60

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Criminal Behaviour & Mental Health – CBMH – aims to publish original material on any aspect of the relationship between mental state and criminal behaviour. Thus, we are interested in mental mechanisms associated with offending, regardless of whether the individual concerned has a mental disorder or not. We are interested in factors that influence such relationships, and particularly welcome studies about pathways into and out of crime. These will include studies of normal and abnormal development, of mental disorder and how that may lead to offending for a subgroup of sufferers, together with information about factors which mediate such a relationship.