Objective: Identify and compare the nuances in depressive symptoms among adolescent Black boys and adolescent White Boys who experienced school policing and school discipline. Methods: Data from 1,099 adolescent boys (803 Black boys and 296 White boys) from the Future of Families “some other security guard regularly stationed at school?”; “stopped by police at school”; “ever seen someone stopped by police in your school?”; and “ever been suspended or expelled in the past two years?” The continuous indicator, depressive symptoms, was measured by using the CES-D 5. Covariates included demographic and school-level connectedness variables. Results: Four depressive subgroups were identified: (1) ecology of policing and discipline, (2) school disciplined, (3) no regular security and never been stopped by police, and (4) security regularly stationed. The subgroups had an incremental decrease in depressive symptoms mean scores. Conclusion: School policing and school discipline influence adolescent Black boys and adolescent White boys differently, such that Black boys were school policed and disciplined more and had higher depressive symptoms than White boys. Therefore, each group of boys experiences similar educational environments in different ways.
Collin Perryman (Thu,) studied this question.