Officer Gunpoint During Police Stops: Repercussions for Youth Mental Health and Perceived Safety

Abstract Objective The present study investigates patterns of officer gunpoint exposure in youths’ direct and witnessed in-person police stops, and whether these exposures shape emotional distress, police violence stress, police avoidance, and diminished safety perceptions. Methods 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. We used multivariable negative binomial regression and ordinary least squares regression to estimate direct associations and the Karlson-Holm-Breen method to test for mediation. Results Findings indicate that ~ 19% of youth in the full sample, and ~ 33% of youth reporting in-person stops, had been exposed to officer gunpoint during the course of one or more police stops. Net of covariates, experiencing officer gunpoint in multiple stop contexts (e.g., direct and witnessed) was associated with a 188% increase in the rate of emotional distress during stops. Significant associations between officer gunpoint during stops and current police violence stress, police avoidance, and diminished safety perceptions also emerged, and were largely explained by heightened emotional distress among youth at the time of police stops. Conclusions Findings suggest that a sizeable subset of our sample had been exposed to officer gunpoint during in-person police stops, and that these exposures may harm the mental health and safety perceptions of youth. Public health approaches are needed to mitigate the mental health harms of experiencing officer gunpoint during adolescence.