Work in progress

Working papers

• Police violence, criminal offending, and the legal socialization of adolescents

  Authors: Thiago R. Oliveira & Jon Jackson

  Under review at the Justice Quarterly

  See abstract

  Abstract: Objectives: Test whether exposure to police violence undermines the legal socialization of adolescents and contributes to increase criminal offending by examining the extent to which witnessing different policing practices, including an officer assaulting a member of the public, is associated with changes in beliefs about the legitimacy of the law and self-reported offending behavior among adolescents aged 11 to 14 years in São Paulo, Brazil.
  Methods: A cohort-based, four-wave longitudinal survey of 800 2005-born adolescents living in São Paulo was fielded annually between 2016 and 2019. Measures include recent exposure to officers stopping, arresting, and assaulting a suspect, legal legitimacy judgements, and recent self-reported offending behavior. We use a recently developed approach to analyze panel data that augments matching methods with the difference-in-differences estimator to model changes in legitimacy beliefs and a hybrid, longitudinal adaption to a multinomial Rasch model to model self-reported criminal offending.
  Results: We find a robust association between witnessing police officers assaulting a suspect and (a) decreased perceptions of legal legitimacy and (b) increased offending behavior over time, as well as a negative association between legitimacy judgements and criminal offending. Results also suggest that undermined beliefs about the legitimacy of the law might mediate the effects of exposure to police violence onto self-reported offending behavior.
  Conclusions: Adolescents in São Paulo are socialized through exposure to police violence. Witnessing police officers assaulting a member of the public undermines the development of beliefs about the legitimacy of the law and increases the risk of criminal offending.
  Keywords: legal socialization, police violence, legitimacy of the law, offending behavior, Brazil.

• Legal cynicism and the enduring legacy of cumulative exposures to police misconduct

  Authors: Thiago R. Oliveira, David S. Kirk, Charles C. Lanfear, & Robert J. Sampson.

  See abstract

  Pregistration availble at OSF Registries https://osf.io/xgeyn.

• Unintended Consequences of Early Exposure to Policing: Assessing Long-term Effects of Police Stops During Adolescence in England and Wales

  Authors: Arabella Kyprianides, Amal Ali, Pele Petnga-Wallace, Paul Quinton, and Thiago R. Oliveira.

  See abstract

  This study enhances the current body of research by investigating the impact of early police encounters on subsequent adolescent behaviour and mental health in England and Wales. Utilising data from the two most recent sweeps of the UK Millennium Cohort Study (N = 9,159), we explore the predictors of early police contact, and the relationships between early police contact and later life outcomes, including offending behaviour, academic achievement, and mental health, over a period of up to three years. We find that violent offending, as well as knife carrying, and non-violent behaviours, as well as gang membership and alcohol and cannabis use, increase the likelihood of police contact at age 14, with little significant racial differences, though non-violent offending and gang membership are associated with police stops for White teenagers but not for those from minority ethnic backgrounds, suggesting differential patterns of police targeting. Our findings regarding the outcomes of police contact paint a concerning picture: early police stops are associated with an increased likelihood of engaging in violent offending behaviour, a reduced probability of pursuing higher education, and a rise in conduct issues and attentional difficulties. These outcomes persist regardless of prior offending behaviour, substance use, gang affiliation, and other dynamic factors. Our results align with labelling, life course, and general strain theories, as well as the conceptualisation of police encounters as stressors within the ‘stress process paradigm’. In contrast to existing research that shows racial variation in the impact of policing, our study does not find evidence of racial disparities in these outcomes. It is however important to emphasise that our discussion focuses on the absence of ethnic disparities in the UK, which could vary significantly from racial disparities observed in the US. While Home Office statistics reveal that racial and ethnic minorities are more commonly stopped by the police, our study suggests that the unintended consequences of early police encounters affect all racial and ethnic groups similarly. Keywords: policing, police stops, youth.