Perpetual encounters: reconceptualizing police contact and measuring its relationship to black women’s mental health

Abstract

Research and media discussion of police contact routinely conceptualize it as time-constrained interactions between officers and civilians. However, extant literature documents preparation for encounters and post-encounter advocacy, which each challenge restricted understandings of contact and, importantly, its relationship to mental health. We introduce “perpetual encounters” to both theoretically and empirically move closer to the temporally unbounded and enduring way that police contact is experienced in black women’s everyday lives. Utilizing a novel, nationally representative dataset on their policing experiences, we explore how mental health is independently and conjointly associated with three dimensions of police contact: preparation, police stops, and advocacy against police violence. Beyond exemplifying how pervasive the police are in the day-to-day lives of marginalized communities, extending the scope of contact recognizes preparation as a significant threat to mental health and advocacy as a health-promoting activity. This study supports moving beyond discrete notions and measurement of police contact to process-oriented understandings and relational modeling.

Introduction

In 2022, ~49.2 million US residents reported contact with the police over the previous 12 months (Tapp 2024). Approximately 20.3 million of those interactions were involuntary or initiated by officers. For black people, 45.4% of all police contact was officer initiated, compared to 40% for their white counterparts. Moreover, when any type of contact was considered,¹ black individuals (4%) were more likely than white persons (1%) to experience the threat or use of nonfatal force (Tapp 2024). The prevalence of such encounters and their racial skewing (Brame et al. 2014) has prompted research on the consequences of police contact—health outcomes chief among investigated topics (American Public Health Association, 2016; Cooper & Fullilove, 2016; Geller, Fagan, and Tyler 2017). Yet, research on events that precede and follow moments of interaction suggests limitations in how police contact is traditionally conceptualized and subsequently linked to civilian health.

Utilizing an original, nationally representative dataset on black women’s policing experiences in the United States, this study documents the prevalence of involuntary police stops, a traditional notion of police contact, and contact-inspired events that are absent from standard conceptualization and measurement because they occur outside the temporal bounds of officer–civilian interaction. Black women’s experiences are centered because although women generally comprise a rising share of officer-initiated contact (e.g., traffic stops, street stops, executions of arrest warrants), black women carry the highest exposure risk² (Farrell 2024; Figures and Legewie 2019; Prison Policy Initiative 2019), face elevated risk of deadly force (Edwards, Lee, and Esposito 2019; Judson, Orakwue, and Alang 2024), and routinely report mental health effects of surveillance and interactions with law enforcement (Fedina et al. 2018).

We situate our broader interpretation of contact within interactionist theory that views present situations (such as police stops) not as isolated events but as “between situations” connected to anticipated futures and past incidents, which shape habits, thoughts, and actions (Tavory 2018; Tavory and Eliasoph 2013). Research on black women and policing aligns with “between situation” thinking (Tavory 2018) as preparation—the act of equipping oneself, children, and broader family members with knowledge and practical tools for reducing the risk of violence—can be a matter of anticipating and coordinating the expected possibility of a police encounter (Brantley 2023b; Dow 2016; Elliott and Reid 2019; Malone Gonzalez 2022). Moreover, advocacy against police violence (referred to as “advocacy” in the remainder of the paper) is one way that black women raise awareness about the harms of police misconduct and violence and engage in resistance for themselves, their loved ones, and their communities (Al’Uqdah and Adomako 2017; Brown et al. 2017; Drabold 2016; Lindsey 2022). A “between situation” perspective might situate advocacy as a future event inspired by a past police encounter, either directly or vicariously.

Building on this work, we introduce “perpetual encounters” as an alternative conceptualization and measurement of police contact that adopts a “between situation” lens and aligns with recent research on the dispersed and hidden harms of policing (i.e., Lindsey 2022; Tillman 2025; Serrano 2024), what scholars have theorized as the slow violence of contemporary policing (Kramer and Remster 2022). We define perpetual encounters as a constellation of contact-inspired events that, through their connectivity, disrupt temporal bounds and construct police contact as an ongoing (hence, our use of perpetual) phenomenon. In our sample of black women, perpetual encounters include direct interaction (e.g., stop, traffic ticket) with officers and interaction-related events such as preparation and advocacy.

After identifying the prevalence of preparation, police stops, and advocacy among black women, we explore if and how consideration of contact as perpetual offers a more nuanced assessment of its relationship to mental health. Specifically, we ask three questions: First, is preparation independently associated with mental health? We understand preparation as a parallel phenomenon to surveillance and, as a result, hypothesize that it will negatively impact mental health if experienced as a chronic stressor or form of labor. Second, we ask if advocacy is independently associated with mental health. Here, our hypothesis is non-directional, as black women may experience their engagement as emotionally taxing (Al’Uqdah and Adomako 2017; Brown 2021; Smith 2016) or restorative and empowering (Brown 2021; Cossyleon 2018). Third, we explore if nuanced understandings are gained when models include other types of contact and police stops. We assess whether preparation and advocacy moderate the negative association between traditional contact and mental health. Our results indicate that preparation is a prevalent dimension posing a significant threat to mental well-being. Advocacy, meanwhile, is a prominent activity that can mitigate the ill effects of police stops.

Perpetual encounters move us closer to how police contact is experienced in the day-to-day lives of black women. To date, demographic work has independently captured contact as discrete moments, such as periods of hypervigilance (e.g., Sewell et al. 2016) or incidents of police stops (Epp et al. 2014; Langton and Durose 2013). Moreover, policing scholars note the presence of advocacy (e.g., Stuart and Benezra 2018; Malone Gonzalez and Deckard 2024), but rarely is it quantified or present in survey instruments. Our relational consideration of these measures lays the groundwork for a life-course approach where discrete moments are connected to capture police contact as a process. It also provides space for resilience and empowerment in marginalized people’s experiences of policing.

Literature review

Police contact and health

Contact

Research and public discourse generally understand “police contact” as direct officer–civilian interaction (American Public Health Association 2016; IACP 2000). The nature of such contact, however, exists on a continuum, ranging from voluntary or citizen-initiated contact (e.g., reporting a crime or traffic accident, requesting information) to an intermediary form of “neutral contact” (e.g., witnessing a crime, involvement in a traffic accident) to involuntary or officer-initiated contact (e.g., being given a traffic ticket, being arrested). Over the last four decades, shifts in policing priorities and practices (McGlynn-Wright et al. 2022) have routinized and increased the prevalence of involuntary contact between citizens and police (Geller and Fagan 2019; Tyler et al. 2014). The high frequency and quality of such experiences, coupled with their disproportionate occurrence in low-income, black, and brown communities (Epp et al. 2014; McGlynn-Wright et al. 2022), have made this form of contact the dominant focus of public and academic discussion.

Substantial research finds that not only are people of color more vulnerable to police contact, but their experiences differ markedly, with black and Latinx individuals more likely to report poor treatment, criminalization, and physical and verbal harassment (Brunson and Weitzer 2009, Brunson and Weitzer 2009; Jones 2009; Rios 2011). The pervasiveness of negative, involuntary encounters in communities of color has prompted scholars to examine the consequences of witnessing or hearing about others’ experiences, referred to as vicarious contact (Brunson and Weitzer 2009), on a host of outcomes like health, legal socialization, and perceptions of the police (e.g., legal cynicism, procedural justice) (Geller and Fagan 2019; McFarland et al. 2019).

Yet, alongside this widely used conceptualization and measurement of “police contact” is a scholarship that challenges the definitiveness of its temporal boundaries. For instance, Foucault (1977) theorized that surveillance is dispersed and pervasive, a power dissipating from prison throughout society. A robust body of literature has since documented the massive presence of surveillance in state and non-state institutions (e.g., Garland 2001) and distinguished between general surveillance and surveillance that is targeted and disproportionately levied (e.g., Browne 2015; Tillman 2023). Regarding the latter, policing is a dominant medium through which marginalized populations are subjected to state surveillance in their daily lives (Brayne 2020; Hitchens, Carr, and Campet-Lundquist 2018). Those at heightened risk of becoming an “object of police suspicion” (Tyler et al. 2015), in turn, invest time in developing protective strategies for future police interactions. For example, black and Latinx youth attempt to dissuade initial and subsequent contact with law enforcement by altering their presentation of masculinity (Rios 2011; Stuart and Benezra 2017), oscillating between respectability politics and displays of violence (Jones 2009), resisting the policing of their gender identity and sexuality (Robinson 2020), and avoiding spaces, social ties, or institutions that increase the probability of officer–civilian contact (Brayne 2014; Fader 2021; Haskins and Jacobsen 2017).

Literature on surveillance and policing strategies suggests that sizable inputs of time, energy, and emotions occur long before and after an officer or citizen directly engages the other. Consequently, this paper calls for a reconsideration of the temporal confines of “police contact” so that it more closely captures the experiences and breadth of consequences for those most vulnerable to exposure. We offer preparation and advocacy, alongside police stops, to build toward an understanding of contact as a perpetual encounter.

Health

Scholars have identified several mechanisms for how direct police contact impacts the mental and physical health of individuals. First, the invasive manner in which police sometimes approach civilians (Brunson and Weitzer 2009) carries the risk of both psychological stress (Sewell et al. 2016; Thoits 2010) and physical injury (Sewell 2017). With the risk of body searches, physical violence, and emotional degradation (Rios 2011; Ritchie 2017; Stuart 2016), police contact is theorized as an independent stressor or strain (Cooper et al. 2004). Yet, beyond any acute stress of the encounter, contact with the police may interact with pre-existing chronic strain to adversely weigh on well-being (Geller et al. 2017). Last, emotions evoked during the encounter may linger, resulting in rumination or mental dwelling that can exacerbate anxiety and depressive symptoms (Turney 2020).

Research also documents the harmful effects that anticipation or preparation for police contact has on health. Ethnographic work describes how those living in heavily policed neighborhoods, particularly men of color, exhibit high levels of worry around the potentiality of being stopped by officers (Jones 2009; Stuart 2016). Such concern may be intensified by what Bell (2016) and others have termed procedural injustice or the perception of unfair treatment during an encounter. Both hypervigilance and perceived unfairness have been identified as mechanisms linking high levels of neighborhood policing with detrimental impacts on mental health (Brunson and Miller 2006; Brunson and Weitzer 2009; Cooper et al. 2004; Geller et al. 2014). Notably, the enduring stress of a past or future encounter constructs police contact as temporally expansive for specific individuals. Thus, we propose that the mental, social, and physical preparation individuals expend toward an eventual encounter is not only a consequence of surveillance but indicative of the perpetual nature of police contact.

While less work has focused on the potential relationship between health and policing advocacy, studies of the latter primarily focus on black women’s efforts. For example, studies highlight how grieving black mothers of victims advocate for change within policing and across the broader carceral system (Al’Uqdah and Adomako 2017; Drabold 2016). Though advocacy efforts may initially be experienced as uplifting and affirming, Smith (2016, 2018) cautions that long-term engagement in justice work around police killings, particularly for mothers, is consequential to mental and physical well-being. Research centering black women activists more generally suggests that empowerment from advocacy can be prolonged when there is a sense of shared experience with those who labored before them (Brown 2021). Moreover, community organizing, in its broadest sense, can shape the lives of women of color in ways that help them minimize “shells” of fear, vulnerability, and despair that can dominate their lives (Cossyleon 2018). Thus, advocacy not only contributes to the perpetual experience of police contact but may also have health implications.

Police contact and black women

Preparation/surveillance

Black adults and youth disproportionately experience police profiling and violence (Epp et al. 2014). In response, black women across social classes make their children and broader networks aware of their vulnerability to police interactions and equip them with strategies to reduce their risk of violence (Brunson and Weitzer 2009; Brantley 2023b; Harris and Amutah-Onukagha 2019; Malone Gonzalez 2022). Black women’s concern for their loved ones’ safety, socialization labor, and protective care strategies construct police contact as a perpetual experience in their lives (Elliott and Reid 2019; Jackson et al. 2017).

Malone Gonzalez’s (2022) study of policing socialization for black girls also highlights how black women’s understanding of risk and safety can be informed by their own experiences with the police. Black women are subjected to surveillance, harassment, and violence from officers (Brunson and Miller 2006; Jones 2009; Hitchens, Carr, and Campet-Lundquist 2018; Lindsey 2022; Ritchie 2017). As a result, they, too, worry about their own potential police encounters and prepare by strategically mobilizing witnesses to increase their visibility and reduce the risk of violence (Malone Gonzalez and Deckard 2024).

Much of the health research on system-involved people has foregrounded incarceration, revealing that black women are disproportionately represented and affected by health concerns like post-traumatic stress disorder (Budd 2024; Mahaffey and Stevens-Watkins 2016). Yet, the mental strain of preparation gestures to the health implications of non-custodial contact for black women. Given that preparation for policing is rooted in anticipation of eventual police contact, any resulting health effects likely mirror what is known about police surveillance and hypervigilance. As previously mentioned, the possibility of police contact, for oneself and others, is a stressor that creates risk for mental and physical health (Cooper et al. 2004; McFarland et al. 2019; Sewell et al. 2016; Sewell et al. 2021). Accordingly, we hypothesize that:

Hypothesis 1: Preparation will be negatively associated with mental health among black women.

Advocacy against police violence

Historically, black women have organized and participated in social movements for the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, reproductive justice, and other issues impacting black communities (Brown et al. 2017). Their involvement in policing advocacy and post-encounter justice-seeking processes is no different. #BlackLivesMatter, a political movement working to end police and white vigilante violence, and #SayHerName, a movement addressing police violence against black women and the erasure of their experiences, were founded by black women (Crenshaw 2024; Ransby 2018). Each movement organizes around anti-black policing and victims, and within the digital landscape, black women use the hashtags affiliated with these movements to tell stories and engage in digital and off line activism (Brown et al. 2017; Williams 2016). For example, black women and girls across the country have organized bail-out efforts, led marches in response to officer misconduct or court negligence, acted as legal observers during protests, disrupted news conferences, and drafted policy changes (Al’Uqdah and Adomako 2017; Battle and Powell 2024; Drabold 2016). While advocacy is typically considered separate from police contact, we propose that engagement in such activities evokes feelings, memories, and responses that extend the longevity of the actual encounter. Advocacy, then, as a product of direct or vicarious policing experiences, constructs contact as a temporarily expansive experience in black women’s lives.

Scholars who investigate the lingering effects of state-sanctioned violence have already called the temporality of police contact into question. Kramer and Remster (2022, p. 44) discuss the slow violence of contemporary policing, or the often unseen, “varied, and far-reaching harms that institutional policing practices inflict.” In particular, Christen Smith (2016, 2018) conceptualizes sequelae—the lingering and unquantifiable impact of violence and community member mourning—to describe this slow violence and its deteriorating effects on the body and spirit of black people affectively connected to victims. While we recognize that the impacts of anti-black policing cannot be fully measured, we use these frameworks as guides to temporally expand conceptualizations of police contact.

Some scholars have theorized advocacy as a form of resistance with positive and life-affirming aspects such as community building, harm recognition and validation, and accountability and justice-seeking (Al’Uqdah and Adomako 2017; Battle and Powell 2024; Drabold 2016; Richardson 2020). By allowing greater access to these positive emotional resources, advocacy may increase resilience, enhance coping strategies, and promote mental well-being (Catabay et al. 2019; Steinhardt and Dolbier 2008). Alternatively, people with positive mental health may participate in advocacy (i.e., selection effect) because of a propensity to engage in community-based activities, a social justice orientation, or preemptive feelings of empowerment and enthusiasm.

Yet, when we think about the “slow violence” of policing (Kramer and Remster 2022) and its enduring, adverse effects (Smith 2016, 2018), it is also probable that advocacy gradually wears on mental health in the face of ongoing state violence. Chronic stress may arise if engagement triggers enduring negative memories or feelings (Smith 2016). Thus, we propose that advocacy extends the temporal confines of police contact in black women’s lives and is likely to influence their mental health. Because the directionality remains to be seen, we suggest the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 2a: Advocacy will be negatively associated with mental health among black women.

Hypothesis 2b: Advocacy will be positively associated with mental health among black women.

Traditional contact and its intersection with other forms of contact

Research on black women and police demonstrates that traditional or direct contact occurs in voluntary and involuntary ways. Qualitative work situated in low-income, urban communities finds that black women sometimes call the police for protection in cases of interpersonal or community violence (Bell 2016; Jones 2009). These decisional moments cause dual frustration, wherein black women want protection but also fear their and others’ risk of police violence (Powell and Phelps 2021). Bell (2016) also theorizes low-income, black women’s voluntary contact with officers as situational and a product of limited options outside of the police for help with familial violence and parental support. Occasional reliance on officers has also been observed among middle-class black women, as they, too, mentally contend with the potential risks and benefits of proactive engagement with police (Malone Gonzalez and Deckard 2024).

Alongside voluntary contact, statistics that capture the race/gender breakdown of involuntary or police-initiated contact suggest that women make up a rising share of traffic stops, street stops, and executions of arrest warrants (Prison Policy Initiative 2019). A 2015 survey shows that women made up almost half (44%) of all police-initiated contact, with black women more likely than white or Latinx women to experience a non-voluntary traffic stop (Prison Policy Initiative 2019). Beyond involuntarily being stopped, black women and girls also experience a variety of hostile treatment within interactions, including physical violence, verbal intimidation, and sexual harassment and assault (Crenshaw et al. 2015; Hitchens et al. 2018; Ritchie 2017). The ever-present possibility of gender-based harassment and sexual violence from police informs how black women protect themselves during encounters—from reaching for a phone to generate a witness to pulling over only in well-lit areas and obtaining officers’ information (Malone Gonzalez 2022).

Black women’s contact with the police—both voluntary and involuntary—are saddled with uncertainty around the potential outcome. Thus, direct contact can be an acute stressor (Cooper et al. 2004) that weighs on health independently or concomitantly with pre-existing chronic strain (Geller et al. 2017). This paper focuses on involuntary or officer-initiated contact and hypothesizes a negative association with black women’s mental health that may take on additional nuance when considered in tandem with preparation and advocacy. Given the proposed deleterious effects of preparation, we further hypothesize that it will exacerbate the negative association between traditional contact and mental health. For instance, anticipation of an eventual encounter may operate as a pre-existing strain that interacts with any acute stress of the encounter itself (e.g., Geller et al. 2017). The moderation effects may be especially prominent when prior direct and/or vicarious police exposure is high.

Because prior research supports both positive and negative impacts of advocacy engagement, we also posit that advocacy may buffer or exacerbate the relationship between police stops and mental health. If advocacy evokes sustained negative memories or emotions (Smith 2016), then it may operate as a chronic stressor that amplifies the association between traditional contact and mental health. If, instead, advocacy generates greater access to positive emotional resources (e.g., Catabay et al. 2019) like agency or belonging from visibility and accountability-seeking, then it may mitigate the relationship between traditional contact and mental health. Hence, we propose the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 3: Traditional contact (being involuntarily stopped by police) will be negatively associated with mental health among black women.

Hypothesis 4a: Preparation will exacerbate the negative association between traditional contact and mental health.

Hypothesis 4b: Advocacy will moderate the negative association between traditional contact and mental health.

While the data structure limits our investigation to moderation effects, we acknowledge that in everyday life, types of police contact likely interact through complex causal pathways to impact mental health. For instance, preparation may be a protective mechanism in response to an incident of traditional contact. Similarly, prior exposure to police stops might prompt engagement in advocacy as a coping activity. Advocacy participation may then heighten exposure to police stops or motivate later preparation. Though we do not explore these plausible interdependencies, we find it worthwhile to consider them conceptually and highlight the provisional support that our descriptives provide, namely, that the majority of black women experience at least two types of contact (fig. 1).

Figure 1.

Counts of types of police contact (N = 1,507; no contact n = 200) % based on N = 1,307.

Data and methods

Data and sample

Data for this study come from the In Her Place Survey on Black Women and Policing in the United States (Malone Gonzalez and Irizarry 2024). The survey was administered by Qualtrics in the fall of 2020 to a national sample of black women—including those identifying as cisgender, transgender, and non-binary—ages 18 or older. Throughout survey development, dissemination, and response analysis, intersectionality was a guiding focus and approach (Collins 1998). Thus, we accounted for and explored intracategorical differences within black women as a social group (Irizarry 2015; McCall 2005).

Eligible respondents were recruited from aggregated survey panels by email, which included the estimated survey length (~30 min) and incentive ($7 upon survey completion). The email also stated that the study was for research purposes but did not include specific details about the survey’s content to avoid self-selection bias. Multiple techniques were used to ensure high-quality data. Qualtrics conducted a soft launch, used digital fingerprinting to reduce the likelihood of ineligible and duplicate participants, and implemented a speeding check (one-half the median soft launch time to completion of 26.5 min) to remove respondents who may not have responded thoughtfully. Additionally, duplicate responses and responses from participants who identified as someone other than a black woman in an open-ended question were removed. The final sample for the In Her Place Survey includes 1,603 black women.

The In Her Place Survey questionnaire included eight sections: (1) demographic background, (2) home and neighborhood context, (3) daily experiences of discrimination, (4) childhood police conversations and experiences, (5) adult police conversations and experiences, (6) access to information on crime and police, (7) views and opinions about police, and (8) police violence activism and social media. The survey includes an entire section dedicated to black women’s experiences of police violence, the circumstances surrounding these experiences, and the contexts in which these experiences occurred—the latter not only attends to traffic or pedestrian stops but also asks about other places where police violence occurs, such as in the home, at school, or in their place of employment. Additionally, survey questions covered a range of subjects related to policing, including how black women prepare for the possibility of police encounters, black women’s opinions and views of police, police violence, and protests, as well as socialization of black youth regarding police encounters. The survey also collected detailed information about black women’s socioeconomic and immigration status, physical features, health and well-being, and gender, sexual, and ethnic identity (self and partner). To the best of our knowledge, there is no national survey data on black women and policing that incorporates measures of social class, phenotype, and sexuality.

As demonstrated in Table 1, confidence intervals of quota categories age and region align with population estimates based on 2020 Census data in all but one case. We find a similar pattern for measures of self-rated health, whereas intervals diverge for education, reflecting a more educated analytic sample of black women than the national average. Additional analyses suggest that this difference is partially explained by the sample’s lower percentage of older black women (65+) who reasonably grew up with limited educational opportunities. This difference may pose implications for the scope of our results: Given that black people with high levels of education and income are still vulnerable to direct and vicarious police contact (Malone Gonzalez 2022; Muller and Roehrkasse 2022), we suspect that any observed associations between preparation and mental health are comparable at best and underestimations at worst. Our analysis is based on 1,507 reports after missing cases (n = 96, 6%) for included variables were dropped.

Table 1.

National estimates and survey confidence intervals for quota categories of age, region, education, and self-rated health.

	National (%)	95% Confidence interval
		Full sample	Analytic sample
Age a
18 to 34	34.4	32.6%–37.3%	30.7%–35.6%
35 to 54	33.1	30.1%–34.7%	30.5%–35.4%
55 or older	32.5	30.3%–34.9%	31.6%–36.4%
Region a
Northeast	18.1	13.4%–16.9%	13.7%–17.4%
Midwest	16.5	15.7%–19.5%	15.8%–19.7%
South	55.8	54.7%–59.6%	54.5%–59.5%
West	9.7	8.6%–11.6%	8.4%–11.4%
Education b
<High school	10.6	3.5%–5.5%	3.1%–5.1%
High school	30.0	22.0%–26.0%	22.1%–26.5%
Some college	26.8	29.9%–34.4%	30.2%–34.9%
Some college—occupational/vocational	4.4	3.9%–6.0%	3.9%–6.1%
College	17.8	17.3%–21.2%	17.3%–21.3%
>College	10.4	13.7%–17.2%	13.5%–17.1%
Education c
<High school	10.0	3.5%–5.5%	3.1%–5.1%
High school	37.3	22.0%–26.0%	22.1%–26.5%
Some college	29.6	34.6%–39.3%	34.9%–39.8%
College	14.2	17.3%–21.1%	17.3%–21.3%
>College	8.9	13.7%–17.2%	13.5%–17.1%
Self-rated health d
Good and above	81.3	79.6%–83.4%	79.5%–83.4%
Poor/fair	18.7	16.6%–20.4%	16.6%–20.4%
N		1,603	1,507

^aDistributions for age and region were calculated using U.S. Census Bureau population estimates of black women ages 18 and older for July 2020.

^bDistributions for education were calculated using Current Population Survey, the March Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC 2020) population estimates of black women ages 18 and older. The survey also provides a COVID-related sampling weight, which does not change the estimates when applied.

^cDistributions for education were calculated using American Community Survey 5-year sample (2016–2020) population estimates of black women ages 18 and older.

^dDistributions for self-rated health were calculated using National Health Interview Survey 2020 (by National Center for Health Statistics, CDC) population estimates of black women ages 18 and older. National Health Interview Survey’s self-rated health measure does not differentiate between physical and mental health. Thus, the comparison is made to self-rated mental health, the key outcome in this study.

Measures

Dependent variable: self-rated health

Respondents were asked to generally self-report their overall mental health status using a scale that ranged from 1 (excellent) to 5 (poor). We dichotomized the ordinal responses into favorable health (good, very good, excellent) and less favorable health (fair, poor) to avoid small cells for less populated categories. Furthermore, studies of self-rated health have shown that this binary measurement generates similar findings and is thus widely used for its more straightforward interpretations (e.g., Manor, Matthews, and Power 2000). Overall, response distributions were left-skewed as most black women (82%) perceived themselves as having good-excellent health.

Independent variables: police contact

We construct three measures of police contact: (1) preparation, (2) traditional contact, and (3) advocacy. Preparation reflects participant responses to four questions. They were asked, “In dealing with the day-to-day possibility of a personal police encounter (as an adult), how often do you: (1) think in advance about the ways you could be stopped by police; (2) try to prepare for encounters by charging your phone; (3) feel that you always have to be very careful about your appearance to avoid being stopped by the police; and (4) carefully observe where police officers might be located?” Possible responses included (1) Never, (2) At least once a week, (3) A few times a month, and (4) A few times a year.

These individual items used to create the preparation construct appear by self-rated mental health in Table 2. Chi-square tests demonstrate that black women’s health status differs by their reported engagement in each item comprising preparation. For example, respondents who report thinking in advance more frequently are also more likely to rate their mental health as poor. Given the high internal consistency among the items (Cronbach’s α = .85), we averaged the responses to create a mean “preparation scale.”

Table 2.

Police encounter variables by self-rated mental health (N = 1,507).

Variables	Fair/poor N = 278	Good and above N = 1,229
Think in advance about the ways you could be stopped by police*
Never	25%	37%
A few times a year	13%	11%
A few times a month	16%	19%
At least once a week	46%	34%
Try to prepare for encounters by charging your phone*
Never	30%	41%
A few times a year	17%	18%
A few times a month	18%	16%
At least once a week	34%	26%
Feel that you always have to be very careful about your appearance to avoid being stopped by the police*
Never	34%	47%
A few times a year	15%	14%
A few times a month	17%	17%
At least once a week	33%	22%
Carefully observe where police officers might be located*
Never	26%	37%
A few times a year	14%	16%
A few times a month	20%	20%
At least once a week	40%	28%
As an adult (18+ years), have you ever been stopped or questioned by police?
Never	46%	52%
Once	25%	22%
>1	29%	27%
Used a recording device to document someone else’s police encounter*
Never	84%	78%
Once	4.7%	8.2%
>1	11%	14%
Organized or worked as a volunteer at a rally or protest about police violence
Never	85%	79%
Once	5.0%	8.1%
>1	10%	13%
Attended a community or neighborhood meeting about police violence
Never	77%	76%
Once	10%	13%
>1	13%	11%
Organized or worked as a volunteer at a community or neighborhood meeting about police violence
Never	83%	79%
Once	7.9%	8.5%
>1	9.0%	12%

Note. %;

^*chi-square tests, P < .05

The second measure, representative of traditional conceptualizations of police contact, is captured by the question, “As an adult (18+ years), have you ever been stopped or questioned by police?” The possible responses included (1) No, (2) Yes, once, and (3) Yes, more than once. Table 2 presents the original scale and suggests that mental health reports do not significantly differ by experiences of police stop(s). In the following analyses, the scale is transformed into a dichotomized variable (0 = no, 1 = yes).

Advocacy is the final measure and constructed from the responses to four questions: In the past 12 months, have you (1) Used a recording device to document someone else’s police encounter; (2) Organized or worked as a volunteer at a rally or protest about police violence; (3) Attended a community or neighborhood meeting about police violence; and (4) Organized or worked as a volunteer at a community or neighborhood meeting about police violence? Theoretically, we consider documentation a form of advocacy because prior qualitative work finds that black women record police encounters for immediate visibility and future justice-seeking purposes (Malone Gonzalez and Deckard 2024).

Of the four dimensions, only documentation and mental health have a statistically significant relationship (Table 2). This association also aligns with interview-based research documenting the empowerment and agency that black women feel when they record a police encounter for themselves or another (Malone Gonzalez and Deckard 2024). We again found high consistency across items (Cronbach’s α = .87), so average the responses to create an “advocacy scale” for subsequent analysis.

Control variables

A range of sociodemographic variables were included as controls: age, gender, nativity, education, median income, parental status, and employment. Except for age, all variables are categorical (see Table 3): Gender (1 = woman; 0 = non-binary, gender non-conforming, combination of responses), nativity (1 = US born), employment (1 = work full or part-time), and parental status (1 = have children) all reflect binary coding. Education comprises a six-category scale ranging from less than high school to more than a college degree.

Table 3.

Descriptive statistics.

Variables	Fair/poor N = 278	Good and above N = 1,229
Preparation* (scale 0–3)	1.66 (1.03)	1.32 (1.03)
Police stop+
No	46%	52%
Yes	54%	48%
Advocacy (scale 0–2)	0.28 (0.52)	0.34 (0.59)
Age*	39.30 (16.17)	44.65 (17.27)
Gender
Woman	96%	97%
Non-binary and others	4%	3%
Nativity+
US-born	93.5%	90%
Foreign-born	6.5%	10%
Education
Less than high school	4.0%	4.0%
High school graduate or GED	28%	23%
Some college	36%	32%
Technical or trade degree	7.6%	4.2%
College	17%	20%
More than college degree+	7.9%	17%
Employment status*
Unemployed/retired	58%	46%
Employed (full/partial)	42%	54%
Median income*
Below median personal income	64%	46%
Above median personal income	36%	54%
Parental status (yes)	50%	55%

Note. %; mean (SD)

^*Indicates variable is significantly associated with self-rated mental health at P <.05 or lower (two-tailed test).

⁺indicates a marginally significant association. Categorical variables are compared to the reference category.

Estimated annual household income was recoded into a median split. Initially, the distribution divided income into sixteen intervals. If less than $150,000, respondents could select the most appropriate $10,000 range interval (ex. $10–000, $19,000). Above $150,000, the increment scaling increased such that respondents could report a household income greater than $150,000 or specify an amount. The fifteen responses for “specify an amount” were excluded from the study, and the median split became a binary coding where respondents are coded as “1” if reported income falls below the median income value ($30,000–$39,000). Last, the only numeric variable, age, contains values ranging from 18 to 80.

Analytic approach

Descriptive findings are first presented to understand the prevalence and distribution of types of contact experienced by black women. As we have collapsed self-rated mental health into a binary variable, we then transition to estimating a series of logistic regression models to examine how different forms of police contact are associated with their mental health. First, we assess independent associations between health and three constructs of contact (police stop, preparation, and advocacy) by sequentially fitting each in the models. To ease the interpretation, we visualize the regression results with full covariates using predicted probabilities. Then, to further examine if preparation and advocacy might moderate the impact of police stops on mental health, we tested for interaction effects in nonlinear models using recommended practices (Mize 2019). We present these results through figures portraying the predicted probability of reporting favorable mental health by degree of preparation and advocacy, for those with and without exposure to traditional contact. Coefficient estimates for the interaction models and second difference tests are included in the Supplementary Materials. All analyses are conducted in Stata 15.

Results

Descriptive statistics of the sample by form of contact

The key descriptive finding in our data is that an officer-initiated police stop is rarely isolated from other types of contact. As depicted in figure 1, black women most commonly report experiencing a traditional police stop along with other contact-inspired events. Among those who reported any police contact (n = 1,307), only 6% (n = 79) singularly experience traditional police stops, while 30% (n = 394) experience both police stops and preparation (preparation scale >0). Notably, women who report only being stopped are comparable to women who experience multiple forms of contact across descriptive variables (e.g., parental status, education). A remaining 260 of these counts (20%) represent women who not only report preparing for contact and experiencing an officer-initiated stop but also engaging in advocacy (advocacy scale >0). Thus, descriptive statistics provide support for our theoretical contribution and reveal an empirical strength of this paper: Police contact is experienced as a perpetual phenomenon in the lives of black women. Traditional measurements, then, would have resulted in non-detection of preparation, the singularly (n = 343) and jointly (n = 848) most frequent experience, and the non-trivial presence of advocacy. This suggests that only measuring police stops is insufficient in capturing black women’s experiences of policing as it underestimates its frequency and longevity in their everyday lives. To be clear, our intent is not to compare the effects of preparation versus police stops on black women’s mental health. Instead, we aim to demonstrate that both forms of contact are consequential for health. As figure 1 depicts, most black women experience both preparation and police stops. Preparation is simply a more prevalent singular occurrence.

Regarding well-being, the majority of surveyed black women report favorable mental health statuses (82%; excellent, very good, or good), with only about a fifth (18%) reporting fair or poor health (Table 3). Still, those who disclose engaging in a higher degree of preparation report poorer mental health than those who express lower engagement. Additionally, having been stopped by the police in adulthood is marginally associated with black women’s mental health (P < .1) before controls. The only exception is the degree of advocacy, which is not associated with mental wellbeing when considered independently. Table 3 also reflects that black women who are younger, US-born, less educated, unemployed, and below the median income report poorer mental health than their respective counterparts (P < .05 or P < .1).

Hypothesis 1: estimating black women’s mental health as a function of preparation

Prior research consistently shows a negative association between police surveillance and mental health, particularly in heavily policed communities (Sewell et al. 2016; Brunson and Weitzer 2009; Geller et al. 2014). Scholars theorize hypervigilance as a central mechanism, positing that the pervasive threat of becoming an object of police suspicion creates a climate of fear (Shedd 2012) where individuals live in an extended, heightened state of anxiety and anticipation. Police surveillance, then, is a constant stressor for those most vulnerable to interactions with the police. We understand preparation as a parallel phenomenon to surveillance as it is rooted in anticipation of an eventual police encounter and includes practical acts or labor intended to prevent violence. Qualitative work that begins to explore black women’s preparation for police interactions notes that it can be a stressful, laborious, and ongoing task as black women do this work for themselves, their children, and broader community members (Malone Gonzalez and Deckard 2024). Therefore, we view preparation as a chronic stressor and hypothesize an independent, negative association with mental health (Hypothesis 1).

Table 4 provides support for Hypothesis 1. To showcase this, Model 1 first fits traditional police contact, which is strongly associated with poor mental health. Black women who have ever been stopped by the police in adulthood have 35% lower odds of reporting favorable mental health (Odds Ratio = 0.65, P < .05) than black women who report no police stop exposure, net of sociodemographic factors. This resonates with prior studies on traditional contact and racial minorities’ mental health (e.g., McFarland et al. 2019). Then, when preparation is added in Model 2, we again find an inverse association to reports of favorable mental health among black women (OR = 0.75, P < .05). Those who report higher engagement in preparation are likely to disclose a worse mental health status than those reporting a lower degree of preparation, net of other forms of police contact and sociodemographic controls.

Table 4.

Odds ratios from logistic regression of good/better mental health.

Variables	(1) Model 1	(2) Model 2	(3) Model 3
Police stop (ref = no police stop)	0.65** (0.49–0.86)	0.73* (0.55–0.98)	0.70* (0.53–0.95)
Preparation		0.75*** (0.65–0.86)	0.73*** (0.64–0.84)
Advocacy			1.52** (1.15–2.00)
Age	1.03*** (1.02–1.03)	1.02*** (1.01–1.03)	1.03*** (1.02–1.04)
Gender (ref = cisgender)	0.79 (0.37–1.67)	0.84 (0.40–1.78)	0.70 (0.33–1.51)
Foreign-born (ref = US-born)	1.84* (1.07–3.18)	1.81* (1.05–3.13)	1.65 (0.95–2.86)
Education (ref = less than high school)
High school graduate or GED	0.65 (0.32–1.34)	0.65 (0.32–1.35)	0.66 (0.32–1.37)
Some college	0.57 (0.27–1.17)	0.60 (0.29–1.25)	0.61 (0.29–1.28)
Technical or trade degree	0.33* (0.14–0.78)	0.32** (0.13–0.76)	0.33* (0.14–0.78)
College degree	0.66 (0.30–1.44)	0.69 (0.32–1.52)	0.70 (0.32–1.54)
More than college degree	1.05 (0.45–2.44)	1.13 (0.48–2.65)	1.09 (0.47–2.58)
Unemployed (ref = employed)	0.58*** (0.43–0.79)	0.55*** (0.40–0.75)	0.56*** (0.41–0.77)
Income level (ref = below median)	1.52** (1.12–2.07)	1.49* (1.09–2.03)	1.43* (1.05–1.96)
Have children (ref = don’t have children)	1.03 (0.78–1.37)	1.04 (0.78–1.39)	1.04 (0.78–1.38)
Constant	2.46 (0.86–7.02)	4.47** (1.50–13.35)	2.96 (0.95–9.19)
Observations	1,507	1,507	1,507

^**P < .01

^***P < .001

^*P < .05; confidence interval in parentheses.

Hypothesis 2: a role for advocacy against police violence

While less work has explored the relationship between policing advocacy and mental health, work on advocacy more generally suggests that the association could be positive or negative among black women. When advocacy expands access to positive emotional resources, it can boost resilience or coping capacities to improve mental well-being (Steinhardt and Dolbier 2008). In this instance, positive emotional resources might include channeling the memory of a deceased loved one or a sense of shared experience with those who labored before them (Brown 2021). Alternatively, the strain of advocacy may evoke lingering negative emotions (Smith 2016, 2018) or operate as a chronic stressor that adversely impacts mental health. Accordingly, we put forward a non-directional hypothesis, acknowledging our inability to disentangle selection effects (e.g., individuals with positive mental health are more likely to engage in advocacy).

Model 3 in Table 4 fits advocacy against police violence, which is positively associated with favorable mental health among black women (OR = 1.25, P < .05). That is to say, black women who report higher engagement in advocacy are more likely to report better mental health than those who communicate lower engagement. Additional analyses suggest that the order in which key predictors are fitted in the models does not change the association between advocacy and mental health (see Appendix Table 3). Model 3 includes each dimension of police contact, revealing that police stops, preparation, and advocacy are all statistically associated with black women’s mental health, albeit in different directions (i.e., inverse/negative for police stops and preparation; positive for advocacy). When each distinct contact type is associated with black women’s mental health, it provides further warrant to examine potential interactional effects in the next section.

Hypotheses 3 and 4: assessing what is gained by inclusion of preparation and advocacy

Our final models explore the nuanced understandings gained when preparation and advocacy are included. To be clear, we neither attempt to downplay the salience of direct officer-initiated contact nor its highly consequential effects on mental health. Instead, we propose that discussion of policing implications should include traditional notions of contact and other dimensions made legible when black women’s experiences are centered. Prior literature suggests that a negative association will be observed between traditional contact and mental health. Given our assessments of preparation and advocacy thus far, we hypothesize that each will moderate the relationship between police stops and mental health.

Consistent with previous research and Hypothesis 3, our baseline model shows a negative association between traditional reports of police contact and mental health. The association remains consistent across the three models, net of covariates and other forms of police contact. Specifically, Model 3 shows that black women with previous police stop experience(s) have lower odds of reporting favorable mental health than those without (OR = 0.70, P < .05). Yet, Table 4 also suggests that focusing predominantly on the police stop would ignore or obscure contact-related events in the lives of black women that also come to bear on mental health. This is most evident by its strong, independent associations to preparation and advocacy. The significant negative relationship between mental health and preparation is especially notable given that our descriptive statistics revealed that black women are most exposed to this form of contact.

Prior literature motivates our investigation into how preparation may moderate the effects of traditional contact. For example, anticipation of eventual contact may be a chronic stressor that exacerbates any acute impacts of the police stop (e.g., Geller et al. 2017). The size of the impact may be even more pronounced if said preparation is a post-traumatic response or coping mechanism for prior police stop exposure. To test moderation effects in nonlinear models (Mize 2019), figure 2 visualizes the average marginal effect of preparation on the mental health status of black women with and without reports of police stop exposure. The coefficients for interaction terms in nonlinear models (Appendix Table 1) and second difference tests (Appendix Table 2) are available in the supplementary materials.

Figure 2.

Predicted probabilities of favorable mental health by degree of preparation. Note: Dotted line with diamond shapes represents respondents who reported “yes” to having previously experienced officer-initiated police stops. The solid line with sphere shapes indicates respondents who reported “No.” Wealso indicate the predicted probabilities for reporting favorable mental health when the degree of preparation is at 0 (min) and 3 (max) by traditional contact. For example, for those without police stop exposure, the predicted probability of favorable mental health is .90 when they do not engage in preparation at all (at 0).

As demonstrated by the downward trajectory of each slope, increased preparation decreases the probability of reporting favorable mental health for black women with exposure to traditional contact (Δ_{experienced police stops} = −0.04, P < .05) and those without (Δ_{no police stops} = −0.05, P <. 001). However, no significant difference is found between black women regardless of exposure when we compare the second difference in the effects of preparation (P > .05). That is, preparation does not exacerbate the negative association between traditional contact and mental health as a post-traumatic response to a prior police stop (i.e., No support for Hypothesis 4a). Instead, preparation is influential to the mental health of black women regardless of direct police stop exposure, perhaps highlighting the power of vicarious experiences and the spillover effects of policing and surveillance (Sewell et al. 2021).

Previous research also informs our exploration of how advocacy may moderate the effects of traditional contact. If it is experienced as a chronic stressor saddled with grief and loss (Smith 2016), then it may exacerbate the negative association between police stops and mental health. If it instead increases access to positive emotional resources (e.g., Steinhardt and Dolbier 2008), like supportive spaces to honor loved ones or community protection while seeking accountability, then it may attenuate the association between police stops and health.

Figure 3 visualizes the average marginal effects of advocacy among black women with and without direct exposure to police stops. It supports Hypothesis 4b, suggesting a moderation effect of advocacy on the association between traditional contact and mental health. Among black women who have experienced police stops, engagement in advocacy increases the probability of reporting favorable mental health, and the effect is quite large (Δ_{experienced police stops} = 0.1, P < .01). However, for black women without reports of police stop exposure, advocacy does not affect mental health (Δ_{no police stops} = 0.02, P > .05). Their probabilities of rating their mental health favorably remain fairly similar by the degree of advocacy (Pr = 0.83–0.87, see fig. 3).

Figure 3.

Predicted probabilities of favorable mental health by degree of advocacy. Note: Dotted line with diamond shapes represents respondents who reported “yes” to having previously experienced officer-initiated police stops. The solid line with sphere shapes indicates respondents who reported “No.” We also indicate the predicted probabilities for reporting favorable mental health when the degrees of advocacy is at 0 (min) and 2 (max) by traditional contact. For example, for those without police stop exposure, the predicted probability of favorable mental health is .83 when they do not engage in advocacy at all (at 0).

We also found a significant difference between black women with and without experiences of traditional contact when comparing the second difference in the effect of advocacy (P < .05). This finding supports a health-promoting role for advocacy as black women may access psychosocial resources and support that can alleviate negative impacts of past police stops. As for black women without prior exposure to traditional contact, their mental health status is relatively more favorable. Accordingly, they may not accrue the same cognitive benefits from engaging in policing advocacy.

In sum, expanding police contact to account for interaction-related events outside of officer–civilian engagement nuances the current understanding of contact and complicates its relationship to health. For black women in our sample, preparation is the modal form of contact and taxing for mental health. Advocacy, on the other hand, is beneficial to mental health and can attenuate the negative impact of traditional contact.

Discussion and conclusion

“Police contact” is generally understood as direct officer–civilian interaction. Quantitative assessments mirror this conceptualization with large-scale surveys capturing contact through questions like “How many times have you been stopped or detained by the police for questioning about your activities?” (Add Health) or “In the past 12 months, have you contacted the police or did the police initiate contact with you for any reason?” (Police Public Contact Survey 2018).

With a nationally representative sample of black women, this study found that preparation is the most commonly experienced form of police contact. We define preparation as the act of equipping oneself, children, and broader family members with knowledge and practical tools for reducing the risk of violence. While this study operationalized preparation in discrete ways (i.e., “carefully observe where police officers might be located”), we consider it to include a wide range of mental, physical, and social acts in anticipation of violence. In our sample of black women, an overwhelming majority of respondents (79%) report engaging in preparation for a potential encounter with law enforcement (e.g., preparing by charging their phone, carefully observing where police officers might be located). As previous research has shown, black women prepare their children and broader networks for potential encounters with the police through socialization practices and transmission of strategies for protection and de-escalation (Brantley 2023b; Dow 2016; Elliott and Reid 2019; Harris and Amutah-Onukagha 2019; Malone Gonzalez 2022). Moreover, recent work reveals that black women prepare for their own potential encounters with officers by utilizing their social ties, cell phones, or social media to generate witnesses and documentation for future justice-seeking processes (Malone Gonzalez and Deckard 2024). Just as police surveillance has been theorized as an omnipresent circumstance in the lives of marginalized individuals (Tyler et al. 2015), we argue that preparation is a continuous endeavor in direct response to the day-to-day possibility of police encounters, whether officer or civilian initiated.

Furthermore, the prevalence of preparation in a sample of black women speaks to a broader racialized and gendered relationship between protective, communal labor and carceral punishment. While our preparation measures focus on the labor that black women expend to protect themselves from (or during) potential encounters, prior work reveals that black mothers often engage in protective labor for their children to prevent them from experiencing state violence. Research identifies this protective labor as a unique form of racialized parenting stress, commonly rooted in rumination or hypervigilance (Brantley 2023a), that may be a key factor in understanding the overall well-being of black mothers (Brantley 2023b; Jackson et al. 2017). Our exclusion of black mothers’ familial preparation means that our models are likely conservative and underestimate the relationship between preparation and mental health among black women. Furthermore, recent studies suggest that the health implications of preparation may impact other marginalized populations like low-SES white women (Muller and Roehrkasse 2022), Latinx women (Lerma 2023), black men (Alston 2024), and Latinx men (Serrano 2024).

In addition to preparation, data show that black women are also heavily involved in advocacy, drawing attention to and protesting state-sanctioned violence (Al’Uqdah and Adomako 2017; Brown et al. 2017; Drabold 2016). Such efforts range from nationally recognized campaigns and movements to publicized memorials and vigils to rallies and community-level organizations to documentation of police encounters (Battle and Powell 2024; Burrowes 2019; Smith 2016, 2018). Approximately one-third of survey respondents in the current study reported engaging in some form of policing advocacy. We acknowledge the importance of examining black women’s advocacy efforts in and of themselves as extant literature does for policing and other issues like reproductive justice, voting, and gender equality (e.g., Aniefuna et al. 2020). Still, we also see merit in situating advocacy within the context of police contact as it illuminates the temporarily expansive nature of police contact in relation to black women’s labor.

Expanding police contact to account for experiences like preparation and advocacy aligns with research on the slow violence of policing (Kramer and Remster 2022) and provides a nuanced perspective of its relationship to mental health. Specifically, in a sample of black women, we find that preparation is negatively associated with mental health (Hypothesis 1). Prior research suggests that both anticipation of contact and actual police stops can negatively impact the mental and physical health of individuals living in heavily policed areas (Brunson and Weitzer 2009; Geller et al. 2014; Sewell et al. 2016). A common mechanism proposed is that hypervigilance, or attentiveness to one’s vulnerability to involuntary police stops, may chronically activate the body’s coping mechanisms, creating health risks (Sewell et al. 2016). Our data align with this general understanding by demonstrating a negative association between preparation, a parallel phenomenon to surveillance, and mental health. Thus, reliance on traditional measures of police contact (i.e., stops) would have obscured what appears to be the most frequently experienced contact-related event in the lives of black women.

We also find that advocacy is positively associated with mental health among black women (Hypothesis 2b). To be clear, advocacy, particularly in black activist spaces, is an emotionally charged endeavor (Destine 2024) that black women note can take a toll on their mental and physical health (Brown 2021). In the context of policing, this negative association has been identified among black women, particularly mothers, with long-term engagement in justice work around police killings (Smith 2016, 2018). Still, despite the potential harms of engagement or the lack of recognition received, black women’s involvement persists due to a shared goal of liberation, empowerment derived from those who labored before them, and desire to achieve visibility and accountability (Brown 2021; Cossyleon 2018; Lindsey 2022; Malone Gonzalez and Deckard 2024). While identifying a causal mechanism for the potential health-protective effects of advocacy is beyond the scope of this study, we speculate that the same factors motivating black women’s persistence may also (sometimes) confer benefits to their mental health. This is most evident in our finding that advocacy attenuates the negative association between traditional contact and mental health among black women with prior police stop exposure (Hypothesis 4b, predicated on Hypothesis 3).

Related, our investigation is primarily grounded in involuntary contact with law enforcement. Research tells us, however, that black women engage in voluntary contact during a crisis (Bell 2016), an act that can be stressful for different reasons (e.g., black women may anticipate intracommunal disapproval for involving police). Framing encounters as perpetual encourages consideration of not only involuntary contact but also the preparative work people undertake before calling on the police and any emotional or relational management they perform in the aftermath. A perpetual encounters lens also aligns with research on vicarious police exposure (Dow 2016; Elliott and Reid 2019; Malone Gonzalez 2022; Turney 2022) and the consequences of being inundated with media images and recordings of police misconduct and violence (Malone Gonzalez, Buggs, and Jackson 2024) long after the officer–civilian interaction has concluded. The longevity of the encounter is prolonged through images and the emotions they evoke, but also in policing preparation and advocacy.

Our study is not without limitations. First, the cross-sectional nature of the data prevented causal exploration or more advanced analytic techniques that require repeated measurements. Consequently, while we have discussed preparation as preemptive or rooted in hypervigilance, we acknowledge that it could also be an unexamined response to, or coping mechanism for, prior police contact (i.e., those with traditional contact might select into preparation). Likewise, even when advocacy yielded a significant association, we could not definitively rule out a selection effect wherein individuals with positive mental health are more likely to engage in advocacy. Second, our use of a global measure of mental health, as opposed to more acute measures like depressive symptoms or psychological distress, could reflect a broad range of symptomatology that widens the possibility of reverse causation. Still, we hope our exploratory analysis fosters a more rigorous investigation of the relationships examined.

Third, we acknowledge that our key independent variables reflect responses assessed for different time scales (e.g., “in the past 12 months,” “ever experienced,” “in your day-to-day”). Future research should consider temporality with greater precision, as it will be important for moving toward estimates of the aggregate effect of varied types of police contact on individual- and population-level mental health. Fourth, the sample comprises a relatively highly educated population of black women with favorable mental health, so our observed associations may be an underestimation in some cases (i.e., preparation and mental health) and an overestimation in others (i.e., advocacy and mental health).

Policing scholarship might also increasingly conceptualize contact as a process with interlinked components detectable when disparate measures are assessed relationally. Doing so is common in demographic studies that feature life-course trajectory, stress process model, emotions as networks, or other theories that simultaneously consider a constellation of measures. While our data structure prevents advanced path modeling (e.g., SEM, mlVAR), we hope this exploratory analysis encourages future structural modeling of and process-oriented thinking around police contact and its relationship to measures, including but not limited to mental health.

A key strength of the study is its use of innovative, nationally representative data that focuses on the unique experiences and perceptions of black women regarding policing. It is from their standpoint and day-to-day experience of intersecting systems and policing that preparation and advocacy emerge to make the perpetual nature of police encounters legible. To further assess the pervasive nature of perpetual encounters, forthcoming studies could expand the sample to encompass a more significant number of black women or other marginalized populations.

Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available at Social Forces online.

Biography

Faith M. Deckard is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and an Affiliate of the California Center for Population Research at the University of California–Los Angeles. Her research examines the social and health consequences of prolonged engagement with social control institutions among marginalized communities. Her work is published in Social Problems, Theoretical Criminology, and Social Psychology Quarterly.

Shannon Malone Gonzalez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and a Faculty Researcher at the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life at UNC Chapel Hill. Her research examines the relationship between marginality and policing, with a particular focus on black women and girls’ experiences of police violence. Her work is published in Gender & Society, Social Problems, Feminist Criminology, and Law & Society Review.

Yasmiyn Irizarry is an Associate Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at The University of Texas at Austin and director of the Numbers 4 Justice Lab. Her research focuses on the critical quantitative study of racism, race, and its intersections in education, justice, social control, and state policy. Her work is published in leading academic journals, including Educational Researcher, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, Socius, and Social Science Research.

Jaime (Feng-Yuan) Hsu is a Sociology PhD candidate and affiliate of the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Jaime’s work centers on how gender and family processes contribute to health and labor market inequality. Their research is published in Social Problems, Demography, and Social Science Research.

Data availability

The data underlying this article will be shared on reasonable request.