Strategic Responses to Navigating Police Encounters among Black Baltimore Residents

• Published date: 01 October 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/21533687221130281
• Author: Kimberly A. Bender,Jennifer E. Cobbina-Dungy,Erin M. Kerrison
• Date: 01 October 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

Strategic Responses to

Navigating Police Encounters

among Black Baltimore

Residents

Kimberly A. Bender

1

,

Jennifer E. Cobbina-Dungy

2

, and

Erin M. Kerrison

3

Abstract

Research on police-citizen interactions has largely explored the treatment of citizens

by the police with less attention paid to citizens’behavior toward the police. Studies

that have examined the behavior citizens’exhibit during police encounters have found

that citizen behavior affects how they are treated by the police; yet, little scholarly

attention has been given to the strategic responses’citizens use during their encoun-

ters with off‌icers. The few studies that have examined how citizens manage encoun-

ters with police focus primarily on young Black males, making it diff‌icult to identify

similarities and differences across gender. The following study makes use of in-

depth interview data collected from a sample of 25 Black adults residing in

Baltimore City who shared their personal experiences and observations of local

police prior to Freddie Gray’s death. We draw on race, gender, and place literature

to understand how participants interpret their encounters with police and the

options available to individuals when dealing with the police. Our analyses reveal

that some strategic responses differed by respondent gender as did the nature of

the police-citizen outcomes. Findings have implications as to how men and women

make sense of police actions and how citizens manage their interactions with the

police.

1

Department of Behavioral Sciences-Criminal Justice Program, University of Michigan Flint, Flint, MI, USA

2

Department of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

3

School of Social Welfare, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Kimberly A. Bender, Department of Behavioral Sciences-Criminal Justice Program, University of Michigan

Flint, 303 E Kearsley St, Flint, MI 48502, USA.

Email: kimbend@umich.edu

Article

Race and Justice

2024, Vol. 14(4) 620-642

© The Author(s) 2022

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/21533687221130281

journals.sagepub.com/home/raj

Keywords

police-civilian encounters, race, gender, place, strategic responses

Freddie Gray’s death while in police custody on April 12, 2015 fanned a renewed

and already heated national conversation about contemporary racism in policing.

However, criminological research has long explored the salience of race in under-

standing police-citizen relationships. Throughout American history, the police

have often engaged in racial prof‌iling, f‌irst in the form of slave patrols and later in

the form of organized police forces (Eaton, 1966; Franklin & Schweninger, 1999).

As a result of this legacy, scholars have found that Blacks generally have less con-

f‌idence in the police than whites and perceive police as racially biased (Barlow &

Barlow, 1999; Bayley & Mendelsohn, 1969; Cobbina, 2019). Compared to other

racial/ethnic groups, African Americans are more likely to be stopped, searched,

and arrested at substantially higher rates (Epp et al., 2014; Hagan et al., 2005;

Kochel et al., 2011), report negative encounters with police (Epp et al., 2014;

Hagan et al., 2005), and distrust law enforcement (Epp et al., 2014). Moreover,

African Americans who reside in economically distressed neighborhoods experience

increased surveillance, police misconduct, and slow response time (Brunson &

Weitzer, 2009; Kane, 2000).

While research has produced invaluable information about how race structures atti-

tudes about police, important gaps remain in our understanding of how race informs

civilians’interpersonal engagement with police off‌icers. First, most studies on police-

citizen relations largely focus on off‌icers’behavior towards citizens rather than on cit-

izens’behavior towards off‌icers. This is surprising, given that the demeanor of both

police off‌icers and suspects inf‌luences the behavior of the other (Dunham & Alpert,

2009). Yet, we know less about how citizens manage interactions with off‌icers (for

exceptions, see Brunson & Weitzer, 2009; Cobbina et al., 2017).

Second, even though Black men have received a signif‌icant amount of scholarly

attention related to police encounters, few studies have considered how gender inter-

sects with race and neighborhood context in determining how police actions are expe-

rienced. Those that have explored this issue generally focus on Black men (for

exception, see Cobbina et al., 2017), revealing that they engage in numerous protective

and reactive strategies to reduce the likelihood of contact and conf‌lict with police

(Cobbina et al., 2017; Weitzer & Brunson, 2009). It is often taken for granted that

Black male civilians are the primary targets of negative police interactions. While

Black men report discriminatory treatment by police, Black women are also at risk

of experiencing negative encounters by law enforcement (Cobbina, 2019; Cobbina

et al., 2017; Crenshaw et al., 2015). However, there remains a limited body of research

examining the intersection of race, gender, and police encounters. Though feminist

scholars have offered a gendered analysis of women and girls pertaining to crime,

criminality, and the criminal justice system, Black feminist scholars assert the need

to put Black individuals’experiences at the center of analysis (Collins, 2000; Davis,

Bender et al. 621