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Cited by 118Policing Practices and PerceptionsCrime Patterns and InterventionsCriminal Justice and Corrections Analysis

Police Contact and the Legal Socialization of Urban Teens

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Geller, Amanda, Fagan, Jeffrey·2019·RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
DOI 10.7758/rsf.2019.5.1.02PMC PMC8423110
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Abstract

Contemporary American policing has routinized involuntary police contacts with young people through frequent, sometimes intrusive investigative stops. Personal experience with the police has the potential to corrode adolescents' relationships with law and skew law-related behaviors. We use the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to estimate how adolescents' experiences with the police shape their legal socialization. We find that both personal and vicarious police contact are associated with increased legal cynicism. Associations are present across racial groups and are not explained by teens' behaviors, school settings, or family backgrounds. Legal cynicism is amplified in teens reporting intrusive contact but diminished among teens reporting experiences characterized by procedural justice. Our findings suggest that aggressive policing risks weakening teens' deference to law and legal authorities.

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  • More recent scholarship has moved beyond imprisonment rates to include other forms of incarceration such as sentenced jail incarceration or pretrial detention, police contact, exposure to police violence, and criminal legal system contact that may not involve incarceration but remains consequential for social and economic life.

    “More recent scholarship has moved beyond imprisonment rates to include other forms of incarceration such as sentenced jail incarceration (Turney and Connor 2019) or pretrial detention (Williams 2003), police contact (Geller and Fagan 2019), exposure to police violence (Edwards et al. 2019), and criminal legal system contact that may not involve incarceration but remains consequential for social”

    From The Rise of the Carceral State: Foundations and Contours of a Rapidly Changing Criminal Legal System (2025) · cites this paper as Geller and Fagan 2019

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Geller, A., & Fagan, J.
Affiliations
  • New York University (US)
  • Columbia University (US)
ORCID
Venue
RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
Publisher
Russell Sage Foundation
Published
2019-02
Volume
5
Issue
1
Pages
26-49
ISSN
  • 2377-8253 (ISSN-L)
  • 2377-8261
DOI
10.7758/rsf.2019.5.1.02
PMC
PMC8423110
OpenAlex
W2918414133
Cited by
118
References
7
Citations by year
2026: 10 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 5
FWCI
65.55
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by-nc-nd
Locations
  • RSF The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • Project Muse (Johns Hopkins University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • eYLS (Yale Law School) (submittedVersion)
  • SSRN Electronic Journal (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD039135, R01HD036916, R01HD040421)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Policing Practices and Perceptions
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Crime Patterns and Interventions
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis
Keywords
police encounters, legal socialization, adolescents, legal cynicism, investigative stops, procedural justice, racial disparities, urban youth, Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study

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