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Faculty Mentor

Jasmine D. Haynes, PhD

Faculty Mentor Department

Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work

Abstract

Police brutality is a social issue that has tormented the mental health of the Black community for decades. Seeing brethren battered and bruised countless times has taken an emotional toll on the relationship of the Black community with the American justice system and the officers meant to uphold it. Previous research has shown that the Black community primarily has a negative perception of law enforcement because of factors like police brutality, unjustified shootings, and legal policies within the justice system. Compounding experiences can occur for people with disabilities within the Black community. Specifically, autistic people have a higher risk of their actions being misinterpreted by police. The researcher engaged in a descriptive study consisting of 22 Black college students from a Southeastern university in the United States. Through the administration of a brief Qualtrics survey, the focus of which was on the emotional well-being of the students. The survey gauged how instances of police brutality (ie. George Floyd and Tyre Nichols) and Black Lives Matter (BLM) responses have affected the participants' trust in law enforcement and their emotional well-being. Recruitment for the study sample included purposive and convenience sampling. Study findings indicated that 70% of respondents reported their trust in law enforcement as either poor or somewhat poor. Fifty percent of respondents reported being neutral in their perception of BLM response to police-brutality related murders. Lastly, over 50% of participants reported their mental health being either poor or somewhat poor. This study revealed that police brutality-related murders have made a notable impact on Black college students’ perception of law enforcement in one southeastern university. This study and its findings provide an integral foundation for developing targeted strategies and offering guidance for future interventions to address the emotional well-being of this specific population in the aftermath of police brutality.

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