Strategic Responses to Navigating Police Encounters among Black Baltimore Residents

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 encounters with officers. The few studies that have examined how citizens manage encounters 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.