Policing as Trauma

“Kevin” lived with his mom in a rented apartment in DC. Their living room window looked out to the street, and Kevin—a 17-year-old Black boy—could see a marked police cruiser with two White officers who had been sitting there for hours. Kevin was convinced they were waiting for him to come out so they could arrest him.

The police have been a constant presence in Kevin’s life. They crisscross through his neighborhood multiple times a day. They appear in marked and unmarked police cars. They come in uniform and T-shirts emblazoned with “Metropolitan Police.” They park on the street corner and at the local gas station. Sometimes they roll into the neighborhood fast and “jump out” on Black men and boys as they are walking down the street, talking on the phone, or sitting in front of their apartment buildings. Sometimes the police come in response to a call from the owner of a local convenience store who is tired of the boys selling weed in front of his market. But more often than not, they are just on routine patrol, passing through to watch the families come and go.

Kevin has been stopped no fewer than 50 times, mostly in the three-block radius of his home. Of course, at times, the police stops were fair and justified. Kevin has sold weed in the presence of an officer and in front of eyewitnesses who told officers he was selling weed. But Kevin has been stopped far more times for no reason at all. He has been stopped when there was no call for service, no sale of drugs, and no criminal activity at all. He has been stopped when he was texting his girlfriend and when he was just waiting at the bus stop or sitting in a folding chair outside his building.

Kevin describes his contact with the police over the years as hostile, unnecessary, and at times quite violent. He has been to the hospital at least three times as a result of police force. Once he was shoved against a wall and then dragged backward down the street by his wrists, which were handcuffed behind his back. Another time he ended up in an ankle brace after officers tackled him to the ground. Another time he complained of chest pains after an officer climbed on top of him to search his pockets for drugs. On that occasion, the officer realized he had forgotten to search Kevin before putting him in a squad car. Instead of pulling Kevin back out of the cruiser, the officer climbed into the backseat, forced Kevin onto his back, and held him down with a knee in his rib cage while he finished the search. Kevin was still in handcuffs and yelling for the officer to “get off.” Kevin is five feet four and 120 pounds.

More than anything, Kevin really hates being strip-searched. On one occasion, he became unhinged in a cellblock when a male officer reached down with little warning and started searching his underwear. Convinced that Kevin was hiding pills in his rear, the officer was going to search underneath his testicles and between his butt cheeks. Kevin recoiled and backed up against the wall. Two other officers watched—one male, the other female. He screamed and hollered and tightened his body against the wall so no one could touch him. All three officers then forced him to the ground, shackled him by his arms and feet, and carried him like a hog down the hall to an even smaller cell.

The officers knew they had touched a nerve with Kevin. Not only was he hysterical, but he had also called out for his “lawyer” several times in the encounter. The officers called for an internal investigation within the police department. When the investigator arrived, Kevin tried to explain how “the officer made me feel uncomfortable” during the search. The investigator twisted his words, discredited his complaint, and stomped out of the cell, slamming the door behind him. Kevin didn’t have better words to explain what happened, and the investigator didn’t have the patience to deal with a teenager who was yelling, cursing, and unable to give a clear and orderly account of the facts. The investigator was there less than five minutes.

When Kevin called in December to say the police were waiting for him outside, his mom thought her son was “paranoid.” I thought Kevin was traumatized. Yes, Kevin’s mom was right: the police probably weren’t actually “waiting” for him when he called that day. We weren’t aware of any warrants, and if the police had one, they would have just come inside to arrest him. But Kevin’s fear wasn’t irrational. Someone who doesn’t live in Kevin’s neighborhood might think, “Well, if he wasn’t doing anything wrong, he wouldn’t be so worried.” But most of us can’t imagine seeing the police every day, multiple times a day—whether we have done anything wrong or not. Most of us can’t imagine walking to a convenience store and having police stare at us—no matter what we wear, with whom we make eye contact, or how fast or slow we walk. In Kevin’s world, the officers are always there waiting for him to stumble. No, Kevin wasn’t being paranoid. He was experiencing what so many Black youth experience in cities like Washington, DC. He was dealing with the traumatic effects of over-policing.

Trauma is any distressing or disturbing experience that causes significant fear, helplessness, confusion, or other disruptive feelings intense enough to have a long-lasting negative effect on a person’s attitudes, behaviors, and social, emotional, or spiritual well-being. Trauma, APA Dictionary of Psychology (2020). See also Development Services Group, Behind the Term: Trauma, National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices (2016). Black youth like Kevin experience trauma from direct acts of police aggression, witnessing or hearing about police aggression toward someone they know, or repeated exposure to the details of police aggression—even against people they don’t know. Thema Bryant-Davis et al., The Trauma Lens of Police Violence Against Racial and Ethnic Minorities, 73(4) J. Soc. Issues 852 (2017); Sirry Alang et al., Police Brutality and Black Health: Setting the Agenda for Public Health Scholars, 107(5) Am. J. Pub. Health 662 (2017). For some, the cumulative stress caused by the daily, gratuitous, and discriminatory encounters with police becomes overwhelming and paralyzing.

In the Black community, the traumatic effects of policing often begin with word-of-mouth and media accounts of police violence. Repeated exposure to high-profile police killings is particularly detrimental to the mental health of Black youth. In 2019, researchers analyzed data collected from a national sample of Black and Latinx youth aged eleven to nineteen and found that youth with more frequent exposure to traumatic experiences while online reported higher levels of post-traumatic stress disorder and depressive symptoms. Brendesha M. Tynes et al., Race-Related Traumatic Events Online and Mental Health Among Adolescents of Color, 65 J. Adolescent Health 371 (2019). PTSD symptoms included reexperiencing the traumatic event, hyperarousal, and numbing. These national results mirror more localized studies in cities and states across the country. In a series of focus groups convened with Black boys aged 14 to 18 in Hartford and New Haven, Connecticut, researchers identified several recurring themes among youth who had witnessed high-profile police killings in the media. Raja Staggers-Hakim, The Nation’s Unprotected Children and the Ghost of Mike Brown, or the Impact of National Police Killings on the Health and Social Development of African American Boys, 26 J. Hum. Behav. Soc. Environment 390 (2016). These youth expressed an acute awareness that young Black men are seen as a threat and have to be careful to get home alive. Ibid. at 394–96. The boys also expressed fear about being profiled by the police, becoming the victim of police violence, and knowing other kids who might be targeted by the police for what they wear and how they act. Many of the boys could “identify” with the victims of the high-profile shootings and understood that police killings could happen to them in their own communities. Those who had personally experienced unpleasant encounters with the police were even more likely to be anxious about the national police cases.

To get home safe, the boys in Connecticut learned to change what they do, how they dress, and what they say—including avoiding certain streets at night, taking down their hood, and explaining their actions if stopped by the police. The boys essentially learned to “be what [the police] wouldn’t expect you to be.” Ibid. at 395. These strategies resonate with Black youth across the country. Black youth now automatically pull their hands out of their pockets, put their hands on the dashboard, or put their hands up and yell, “Don’t shoot,” when confronted by the police. Black youth routinely run at the sight of police—not because they are hiding something or doing anything wrong, but because they are terrified of getting shot, choked, beaten, or maimed. Black youth learn these safety measures from their parents, construct them with friends, or develop them instinctively to survive. But the need for survival strategies is itself a source of trauma. Just having to worry about becoming a victim is as frightening and stressful as being a victim. Maria Trent, Danielle G. Dooley, and Jacqueline Dougé, The Impact of Racism on Child and Adolescent Health, Policy Statement of American Academy of Pediatrics, 144 Pediatrics 4 (Aug. 2019). Even when the anticipated violence doesn’t happen, youth often suffer from the same psychological effects that would normally accompany such an encounter. Survival strategies are also embarrassing and demeaning. Having to placate or acquiesce to the police—especially when innocent of any crime—steals youths’ dignity and undermines their self-esteem.

While a small percentage of Black youth will actually die at the hands of police, many more will experience some form of degrading or invasive police encounter multiple times in their lives. Dylan B. Jackson et al., Police Stops Among At-Risk Youth: Repercussions for Mental Health, 65 J. Adolescent Health 627 (2019) [hereinafter Police Stops Among At-Risk Youth]; Juan José Medina Ariza, Police-Initiated Contacts: Young People, Ethnicity, and the “Usual Suspects,” 34 Policing and Society 208 (2014). Black youth in urban cities like Chicago, Cincinnati, New York, and Washington, DC, see police as a constant, inescapable, and unwelcome presence in their communities—especially in neighborhoods where police stops overwhelmingly involve young Black and Latino boys. Craig B. Futterman, Chaclyn Hunt, and Jamie Kalven, Youth/Police Encounters on Chicago’s South Side: Acknowledge the Realities, U. Chi. L. F. (March 23, 2016); Rod K. Brunson, Police Don’t Like Black People: African-American Young Men’s Accumulated Police Experiences, 6(1) Criminology and Pub. Pol’y 84 (2007); Nikki Jones, “The Regular Routine”: Proactive Policing and Adolescent Development Among Young Poor Black Men, New Directions in Child & Adolescent Dev. 33 (Spring 2014); Claudio Vera Sanchez and Erica B. Sanchez, Sacrificed on the Altar of Public Safety: The Policing of Latino and African American Youth, 27 J. Contemporary Crim. Just. 322 (2011).

Young black men who experience physically and emotionally invasive police encounters report considerable signs of trauma and anxiety. Amanda Geller et al., Aggressive Policing and the Mental Health of Young Urban Men, 104(12) Am. J. Pub. Health 2321 (2014); Abigail A. Sewell et al., Living Under Surveillance: Gender, Psychological Distress, and Stop-Question-and-Frisk Policing in New York City, 159 Soc. Sci. & Med. 1 (2016) [hereinafter Living Under Surveillance]. Those signs increase with the frequency of the police contact, the intrusiveness of the contact, and the young men’s perception that the contact was unfair. Encounters involving harsh language, racial insults, or taunts about sexuality create the most stress and are perceived as the most offensive. Geller et al., supra, at 2321. In 2019, researchers analyzed data collected from 918 at-risk youth, at an average age of fifteen, who had been stopped by the police over a three-year period. Police Stops Among At-Risk Youth, supra, at 627. Thirty-nine percent of the youth stopped were thirteen years old or younger at the time of their first stop. Most had been stopped on the street, but 24 percent were stopped at school and 29 percent were stopped at other locations. Youth who were stopped more frequently were more likely to report feeling angry, scared, and unsafe and more likely to experience stigma and shame. Those who experienced more invasive stops like searches, frisks, harsh language, and racial slurs were more likely to report both emotional distress during the stop and post-traumatic stress after the stop. Youth experienced stress regardless of whether they were engaged in delinquent behavior. Even youth who had an extensive history of delinquency were not immune from the emotional distress, trauma, and stigma associated with the most intrusive stops.

In 2020, researchers looked specifically at the connection between exposure to police stops and adolescent sleep patterns. Dylan B. Jackson et al., Police Stops and Sleep Behaviors Among At-Risk Youth, 6(4) J. Nat’l Sleep Found. 1 (2020). Analyzing data from 3,444 U.S. youth who reported on their experiences of social stigma, post-traumatic stress, and sleep quality after direct and vicarious exposure to police stops, researchers found that youth who had been exposed to police stops exhibited significantly greater odds of sleep deprivation and low sleep quality. Even when the youth were only bystanders to the stops or witnessed more subtly abusive police behaviors, they still experienced trauma that lowered both the quality of their sleep and the number of hours they slept. These findings are consistent with other studies that list nightmares, flashbacks, and insomnia as symptoms commonly associated with police trauma. Bryant-Davis et al., supra, at 854.

The mere presence of an officer in a heavily policed and racially targeted neighborhood can be toxic for an adolescent’s health. Living Under Surveillance, supra, at 1; Abigail Sewell and Kevin Jefferson, Collateral Damage: The Health Effects of Invasive Police Encounters in New York City, 93 J. Urban Health: Bull. N.Y. Acad. Med. 542 (2016); Alang et al., supra, at 664. Young people who have witnessed or experienced invasive police encounters often recall and relive those experiences whenever they see the police. They may have vivid flashbacks and revisit the previous physical and psychological reactions, such as sweating, difficulty breathing, and nausea. Police Stops Among At-Risk Youth, supra, at 628. To avoid triggering memories and reduce the emotional effects of prior police contact, some Black youth stay inside or limit their use and enjoyment of public and recreational spaces. Rod K. Brunson and Kashea Pegram, “Kids Do Not So Much Make Trouble, They Are Trouble”: Police-Youth Relations, 28 Future of Child. 83(2018). Others just go out of their way to avoid contact with the police and are always on guard against the possibility of police abuse. Bryant-Davis et al., supra, at 854. For some, the effects of police trauma are not immediately evident. At first, the effects of an individual encounter with the police may seem subtle or temporary, but over time—especially with long-term or repeated exposure—policing can affect adolescent well-being for days, weeks, and even a lifetime after a traumatic event.

Trauma is harmful at any age, but it is especially harmful in adolescence. Because the adolescent brain has the remarkable capacity to change and adapt in response to positive or negative experiences, trauma can have a significant and lasting effect on how a child’s brain develops and life unfolds. Laurence Steinberg, Age of Opportunity: Lessons from the New Science of Adolescence (2014), 9, 22. Research shows that the link between stressful events and trauma symptoms is even stronger during adolescence than childhood. Puberty makes the brain more sensitive to a range of environmental influences, including the way people treat us. Adolescents are not only more attentive to their encounters with the police but also more likely to be influenced by those encounters in negative and enduring ways. Ibid., 42–43.

At some point, the police—and all of the people who hold them accountable—have to decide whether the goals they hope to achieve can ever be accomplished with the aggressive and repeated stops they impose on Black youth like Kevin. The longer I worked with Kevin, the clearer it became that the police were wasting a lot of time and money trying to get him to stop selling weed. Worse, they were doing a lot of damage to Kevin’s psyche and hope for the future.

If we are serious about reducing the trauma associated with the hyper-surveillance and over-policing of Black youth, then we have to rewrite the laws that make it a crime to be Black and to be a child. Lawmakers have the power to decriminalize normal adolescent behaviors, reduce the presence of police in the lives of Black youth, and insist upon more humane treatment of youth who do come in contact with police. We should decriminalize behaviors like disorderly conduct, simple drug possession, disregard of police commands, disturbing schools, curfew violations, school fights that do not involve serious injuries, and adolescent aggressive speech, including profanity and threats. These are matters better left to parents, counselors, and mental health providers and rarely require police intervention. Lawmakers should prevent police from handcuffing children under a certain age; prohibit strip searches, Tasers, and other uses of force with children; and adopt anti-racial profiling laws that prevent police from stopping or frisking a youth without specific reasons to believe the child has committed a crime. Most important, we have to treat all children like children. For more youth stories, research, and recommendations, see Kristin Henning, The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth (2021).