Experiencing racial discrimination impacts the mental health of teens in the U.S. (IN) justice system
Interventions need to consider adolescents' exposure to interpersonal racial discrimination alongside other forms of violence when providing care
SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY
DALLAS (SMU) – A new study by SMU psychologists shows interpersonal racial discrimination and other forms of violence can impact the mental health of adolescents in the justice system.
The research advocates for a more holistic approach to mental health intervention, emphasizing the importance of considering adolescents' experiences of interpersonal racial discrimination alongside other more recognized forms of violence. By acknowledging and addressing these intersecting factors, stakeholders can better tailor support systems to meet the unique needs of adolescents of color in the justice system.
Published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, the study involves 118 adolescents of color, ages 14 to 17, and their mothers, comparing the effects of interpersonal racial discrimination together with experiences of harsh parenting, teen dating violence, and exposure to parental partner violence. The authors note that while interpersonal racial discrimination can be conceptualized as a type of interpersonal violence, it is seldom considered as such.
This can be a problem when trying to understand how a teen’s exposure to interpersonal violence, in various forms, relates to their mental health symptoms and subsequent acts of delinquency. The authors note that adolescents of color are disproportionately represented in the U.S. justice system, a disparity that previous studies have tied to racism and interpersonal racial discrimination.
“It is common for researchers to look at common adverse childhood experiences related to violence, but often racial discrimination is left out of the equation,” said lead author Ernest Jouriles, professor and director of clinical training in SMU’s Department of Psychology. “We found that experiencing interpersonal racial discrimination is as harmful, if not more harmful, than other commonly studied traumatic events.”
The research used 3-month, longitudinal data from a larger study that looked at how mother-adolescent communication about dating relationships is linked to adolescent dating violence and victimization. Participants in that study were recruited with flyers distributed at truancy courts, by probation offices, and through victim services offices.
Half of the teenagers reported experiencing violence from their parents, and more than half said they had experienced violence in their dating relationships. Some also reported they had seen their parents being physically violent with each other. About half noted they themselves had been mistreated because of their race. Many believed the unfair treatment stemmed from people perceiving the teens as lacking intelligence.
“Historically, this research has been very siloed, with racial discrimination in one area of research and interpersonal violence in another, but our results suggest they should be examined together,” said Melissa Sitton, a doctoral student in the SMU Clinical Psychology program and one of the paper’s authors. “Researchers, clinicians and others providing services must assess situations more broadly to provide more effective assistance.”
Sitton will present the research at the upcoming Society for Research in Child Development Anti-Racist Developmental Science Summit: Transforming Research, Practices, and Policies Summit, scheduled for May 15-17 in Panama City, Panama.
Additional research team members include SMU professors David Rosenfield and Renee McDonald and Pricilla Lui from the University of Washington. Research reported in this press release was supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under Award Number R01CE001432.
About SMU
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JOURNAL
Journal of Interpersonal Violence
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
Interpersonal Violence, Racial Discrimination, and Mental Health Symptoms Among Adolescents of Color in the Juvenile-Justice System
Visiting white parts of town make some Black kids feel less safe
Familiarity seems to reveal threats, new study finds
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Some Black youth feel less safe when they visit predominantly white areas of their city, a new study in Columbus has found.
And it was those Black kids who spent the most time in white-dominated areas who felt less safe, said Christopher Browning, lead author of the study and professor of sociology at The Ohio State University.
“Familiarity with white neighborhoods doesn’t make Black kids feel more comfortable and safer. In fact, familiarity seems to reveal threats,” Browning said.
“It is not a terribly optimistic finding.”
The study was published online recently in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
The study is one of the first to examine racial differences in how urban youth perceive their safety in real time, Browning said. Data came from the federally funded Adolescent Health and Development in Context study, which involved 1,405 11- to 17-year-old youths in Columbus.
Researchers gave participants smartphones, which they used to report on how safe they felt as they moved through the city over a one-week period.
Five random times a day, the youths received a mini-survey that asked them where they were, what they were doing, who they were with and social characteristics of the setting. The GPS on their phone also recorded their location.
Each survey also asked them to rate on a 5-point scale if the location they were in was a safe place to be.
Researchers classified the youth as being in a white-dominated area if the census-block they were in when they were surveyed was at least 70% non-Hispanic white.
The study also measured violent crime levels in the areas that the youth visited.
Results showed that youth generally felt safe when they were near their homes – those who were within 30 meters of their home had about a 14% greater probability than others of strongly agreeing they felt safe in the moment.
Not surprisingly, both Black and white youth were less likely to say they felt safe when they were in census blocks that had higher violent crime rates.
But it was the racial differences that were of greatest interest to the researchers.
“When white youth are in white-dominated spaces, they tended to feel a little safer,” said Browning, who is also a member of Ohio State’s Institute for Population Research. “But that’s not the case for Black youth.”
The issue that Black youth face in Columbus and most other cities is that the resources they want and need – such as shopping, entertainment, libraries and restaurants – are often located in predominantly white areas.
Results of the study showed that Black youth who live in segregated, predominantly Black neighborhoods spend an average of 40% of their non-home time in white-dominated neighborhoods – about twice as much time as they spend in their own neighborhoods.
And the unsafe feeling for Black participants in the study increased with more exposure to predominantly white neighborhoods. For example, for teenagers exposed, on average, to 70% white neighborhoods, being outdoors in a white neighborhood reduced the probability of reporting strong agreement that the location was safe by about 26%.
“There is this complicated trade-off that Black youth have to navigate in which they want to take advantage of these organizational resources that are mainly available in white areas of the city,” Browning said. “But they also have to deal with feeling concerned about their safety.”
In order to keep the mini-surveys short, youth were not asked what led to their feelings of relative safety when they were in different parts of the city. But other research points to why Black youth would feel less safe in white-dominated areas of the city, he noted.
There is the fear of being the victim of racial violence or having a potentially dangerous encounter with police, which, while rare, is always possible, he said.
“But there is also the sense of psychological safety. We think of it as the sense of trust that Black youth have that they can be themselves and not be at risk of being excluded, which could include anything from microaggressions to outright discrimination,” he said.
This perception of being less safe in white neighborhoods may have real-life health consequences for Black youth. In a study published last year in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology, Browning and colleagues measured hair cortisol concentrations in some of the same Black and white youths (690 total) involved in this research. High hair cortisol levels indicate elevated levels of chronic stress.
The findings showed that Black youth who perceived they were less safe also had higher levels of hair cortisol. Similar findings were not seen in white kids.
“We found that feelings of safety among Black kids predict this biological indicator of stress found in hair. High levels of chronic stress could have negative effects on health,” Browning said.
The results show the challenges that Black youth face living in American cities.
While a lot of attention has been paid to the problems Black youth face growing up in segregated neighborhoods, this study suggests that leaving those areas may present problems as well.
“Black youth face unique challenges when they try to use the resources that are often found only in white-dominated neighborhoods in their city,” Browning said.
Other co-authors were Bethany Boettner of Ohio State’s IPR; Nicolo Pinchak of the University of Oxford in the UK; and Catherin Calder of the University of Texas at Austin.
Funders of the study included the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute on Child Health and Human Development, and the W.T. Grant Foundation.
JOURNAL
Journal of Adolescent Health
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Observational study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
Racial Differences in Activity Space Exposures and Everyday Perceptions of Safety Among Urban Youth
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