COMMITTEE CHAIR: Dr. Temilola Salami
COMMITTEE CO-CHAIR: Dr. Stacie DeFreitas

TITLE: RACIALIZED SURVEILLANCE AND ADOLESCENT MENTAL HEALTH: A SERIAL MODERATED MEDIATION MODEL OF POLICE CONTACT, EMOTIONAL RESPONSE, AND TRAUMA SYMPTOMS

ABSTRACT: Introduction: This study examined the psychological implications of adolescent police contact using a serial moderated mediation framework grounded in Critical Race Theory, Vile Vigilance Theory, and developmental psychopathology. Drawing on data from Waves 6 and 7 of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS), the study investigated whether the qualitative intrusiveness of police encounters was associated with young adult internalizing outcomes through adolescent emotional responses and police-related trauma symptoms. The analytic sample consisted of 550 youth with complete data on key study variables. Method: Police contact was operationalized as a composite index of intrusiveness capturing coercive, stigmatizing, and force-related features of encounters. Emotional responses during police encounters and subsequent trauma symptoms were assessed during adolescence, and internalizing outcomes in young adulthood were measured using diagnostic indicators derived from the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI), summarized as a count of anxiety and depression indicators. Regression-based conditional process modeling with bootstrapped indirect effects was used to test hypothesized pathways, along with sensitivity and moderation analyses. Results: Greater police intrusiveness was significantly associated with heightened negative emotional responses during encounters and increased police-related trauma symptoms. Negative emotional response was also significantly associated with trauma symptoms, supporting a proximal affective pathway linking intrusive encounters to sustained distress. However, no direct or indirect effects of intrusiveness, emotional response, or trauma symptoms on young adult internalizing outcomes were statistically significant. Sensitivity analyses using police contact frequency did not reproduce this pattern, and moderation by gender and race–sex identity profiles was not statistically significant. Findings: Findings indicate that intrusive police encounters are associated with meaningful emotional and trauma-related responses during adolescence but are not associated with diagnostic-level internalizing outcomes in young adulthood in the current sample. Results highlight a distinction between proximal psychological responses and distal clinical outcomes and underscore the importance of assessing the qualitative characteristics of police encounters. Notably, encounter intrusiveness—but not frequency—was associated with adolescents’ emotional and trauma-related responses, emphasizing the importance of how encounters are experienced rather than how often they occur.

Keywords: Longitudinal design, police contact, emotional response, trauma symptoms, internalizing outcomes, moderated mediation

Location Online:

Zoom Link:

https://pvpanther.zoom.us/j/7837371645?omn=95549484465

 Meeting ID: 783 737 1645