In some urban neighborhoods, encounters with police have become one of the primary points of contact between disadvantaged citizens and their government. Yet extant scholarship has only just begun to explore how criminal justice interventions help to shape the political lives of the urban poor. In this article, we ask: What are the consequences of the increased use of stop-and-frisks (Terry stops) in disadvantaged neighborhoods for communities’ engagement with the state? Relying on a novel measure of local citizen engagement (311 calls for service) and more than one million police stops, we find that it is not concentrated police surveillance per se that matters but, rather, the character of police contact. The concentration of police stops overall is associated with higher levels of community engagement, while at the same time, a high degree of stops that feature searches or the use of force, especially when they do not result in an arrest, have a chilling effect on neighborhood-level outreach to local government. Our article marks a first step toward understanding what concentrated policing means for the democratic life and political agency of American communities.
AnselinLucSyabriIbnuKhoYounihn. 2005. GeoDa: An introduction to spatial data analysis. Geographical Analysis38:5–22.
2.
BakerAl. 21November2007. City police stop whites equally but frisk them less, a study finds. New York Times.
3.
CarrPatrick J.NapolitanoLauraKeatingJessica. 2007. We never call the cops and here is why: A qualitative examination of legal cynicism in three Philadelphia neighborhoods. Criminology45 (2): 445–80.
4.
CohenCathy J.2010. Democracy remixed: Black youth and the future of American politics. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
5.
de TocquevilleAlexis. 1835. Democracy in America. London: Saunders and Otley.
6.
FaganJeffreyDaviesGarth. 2000. Street stops and broken windows: Terry, race and disorder in New York City. Fordham Urban Law Journal28:457–504.
7.
FaganJeffreyTylerTomMearesTracey. 2011. Street stops and police legitimacy in New York. Paper presented at the Crime Decline Conference at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY.
8.
FlemingCory, ed. 2008. Call 311: Connecting citizens to local government final report. Washington, DC: International City/County Management Association.
9.
GelmanAndrewFaganJeffreyKissAlex. 2007. An analysis of the New York City Police Department’s “stop-and-frisk” policy in the context of claims of racial bias. Journal of the American Statistical Association102 (479): 813–23.
10.
GibsonChris L.WalkerSamuelJenningsWesley G.MillerJ. Mitchell. 2010. The impact of traffic stops on calling the police for help. Criminal Justice Policy Review21 (2): 139–59.
11.
HackerJacob S.PiersonPaul. 2010. Winner-take-all politics: How Washington made the rich richer—and turned its back on the middle class. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
12.
HobbesThomas. 1651/1996. Leviathan. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
13.
JohnsonSteven. 1November2010. What a hundred million calls to 311 reveal about New York. Wired.
14.
KaneRobert J.2002. The social ecology of police misconduct. Criminology40 (4): 867–96.
15.
KennedyRandall. 1997. Race, crime, and the law. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
16.
LermanAmy. 2013. The modern prison paradox: Politics, punishment, and social community. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
17.
LermanAmyWeaverVesla. Forthcoming. Arresting citizenship: The democratic consequences of American crime control. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
18.
LipskyMichael. 2010. Street-level bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the individual in public service. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
19.
LockeJohn. 1690. Two treatises of government. London: Awnsham Churchill.
20.
McCluskeyJohn David. 2003. Police requests for compliance: Coercive and procedurally just tactics. El Paso, TX: LFB Scholarly Publishing.
21.
MuirWilliam K.1979. Police: Streetcorner politicians. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
22.
Pew Charitable Trusts, Philadelphia Research Initiative. 2March2010. A work in progress: Philadelphia’s 311 system after one year. Philadelphia, PA: Pew Charitable Trust.
23.
RiveraRayBakerAlRobertsJanet. 12July2010. A few blocks, 4 years, 52,000 police stops. New York Times.
24.
RohSunghoonRobinsonMatthew. 2009. A geographic approach to racial profiling: The microanalysis and macroanalysis of racial disparity in traffic stops. Police Quarterly12:137–69.
25.
RosenbaumDennis PSchuckAmie M.CostelloSandra K.HawkinsDarnell F.Ring.Marianne K.2005. Attitudes toward the police: The effects of direct and vicarious experience. Police Quarterly8 (3): 343–65.
26.
SampsonRobert J.RaudenbushStephen W.2004. Seeing disorder: Neighborhood stigma and the social construction of “broken windows.”Social Psychology Quarterly67 (4): 319–42.
27.
SkoganWesley. 2006. Asymmetry in the impact of encounters with police. Policing & Society16 (2): 99–126.
28.
SmithDouglas A.1986. The neighborhood context of police behavior. In Crime and justice: An annual review, vol. 8, eds. TonryMichaelMorrisNorval, 313–41. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
29.
SossJoe. 2005. Making clients and citizens: Welfare policy as a source of status, belief, and action. In Deserving and entitled: Social constructions and public policy, eds. SchneiderAnneIngramHelen, 291–328. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
30.
StoudtBrett G.FineMichelleFoxMadeline. 2011. Growing up policed in the age of aggressive policing policies. New York Law School Law Review56:1331–70.
31.
SunshineJasonTylerTom R.2003. The role of procedural justice and legitimacy in shaping public support for policing. Law & Society Review37 (3): 513–48.
32.
TerrillWilliamReisigMichael D.2003. Neighborhood context and police use of force. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency40 (3): 291–321.
33.
TylerTom. 1990. Why people obey the law: Procedural justice, legitimacy, and compliance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
34.
TylerTom R.FaganJeffrey. 2012. The impact of stop and frisk policies upon police legitimacy. In Key issues in the police use of pedestrian stops and searches: Discussion papers from an urban institute roundtable, eds. VigneNancy LaLachmanPamelaMatthewsAndreaNeusteterS. Rebecca, 30–36. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.
35.
TylerTom R.HuoYuen J.2002. Trust in the law: Encouraging public cooperation with the police and courts, vol. 5. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation Publications.
36.
WeaverVesla M.LermanAmy E.2010. Political consequences of the carceral state. American Political Science Review104 (4): 817–33.
37.
WeichselbaumSimone. 16May2012. Brownsville has most police “stop-and-questions” in city. New York Daily News.
38.
WeitzerRonaldBrunsonRod K.2009. Strategic responses to the police among inner-city youth. Sociological Quarterly50:235–56.
39.
WeitzerRonaldTuchSteven A.2006. Race and policing in America: Conflict and reform. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
