Sociodemographic Correlates of Police Victimization: Data from Surveys in Four Cities with Novel Measures of Police Violence

Background:

Police violence is anecdotally reported to be widespread in the United States and, in recent years, has culminated in significant uprisings across several major cities and the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement. Despite the putative pervasiveness of police violence in the United States, especially among communities populated primarily by people of color, there has been minimal population-level academic research on the subject. This likely reflects, in part, the lack of valid and reliable quantitative measures of police victimization.  The aims of this study were to assess the psychometric properties and sociodemographic correlates of two novel assessments of police victimization.

Methods:

Adults (N=1473) sampled from Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, and Washington D.C. provided demographic data and completed a series of self-report questionnaires, including two novel measures of police violence. The Assessment of Police Practices (APP), uses a checklist format to index lifetime and past-year exposure to police-initiated violence and neglect, as well as positive police practices. The Expectations of Police Practices Scale (EPPS), provides a summary measure of an individual’s view of the likelihood that police will victimize them over the following year. Both measures were developed to assess the World Health Organization domains of violence (i.e., physical, sexual, emotional, and neglect). Scale validity and reliability were assessed using psychometric methods, and associations between police violence scales and sociodemographic variables were tested using regression and ANOVA.

Results:

Both novel measures demonstrated excellent reliability and validity. Specifically, the construct validity of the APP was demonstrated through significant associations with the EPPS and self-reported criminal activity (convergent validity), and non-significant associations with a brief resilience scale (discriminant validity). The EPPS showed similar construct validity, and excellent internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha=0.95). On the APP, respondents endorsed high rates of positive police interactions (46.4%), as well as verbal/emotional victimization (18.2%) and police neglect (19.1%). Rates of physical victimization (without a weapon: 6.2%; with a weapon: 3.5%) and sexual victimization (2.9%) were lower, but notable. EPPS scores were bimodal, with approximately one third of respondents endorsing that all forms of police violence were “not at all likely” to occur over the following year, while the other two thirds of respondents endorsed moderate likelihood. Prevalence of domains of police violence varied by gender (trans>male>female, all p<0.001 except neglect), race (highest among black, Native American, or more than one race, for most categories), ethnicity (Latino>non-Latino, all p<0.05), and sexual orientation (sexual violence only: LGBT>heterosexual, p=0.006). Rates of positive police interactions increased with education level, whereas rates of police neglect decreased (p<0.01). EPPS scores followed similar sociodemographic patterns.

Conclusions & Implications:

A substantial minority of respondents endorsed non-physical police victimization and neglect. Physical and sexual victimization were endorsed by fewer respondents, although still notably prevalent, particularly among certain sociodemographic sub-groups. Police victimization was unevenly distributed among demographic groups in the four cities studied, and generally was more commonly reported by respondents from disadvantaged groups. These epidemiological data can provide the foundation for efforts to reduce the prevalence and impact of police victimization in U.S. cities.