Officer gunpoint during police stops: Repercussions for youth mental health and perceived safety

Abstract

AbstractYouth‐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.