Crime, Cops, and Context: Risk and Risk-Management Strategies Among Black and Latino Youth in New York City

This study documents perceptions of victimization risk and other neighborhood dangers drawing on 43 in-depth interviews with youth residing in high-crime neighborhoods of New York City. More specifically, it relates lived experiences of crime and police encounters to perceptions of local threats and identifies the role of gender, race/ethnicity, and neighborhood in the configuration of these assessments. We also highlight the role of various analytical frames employed by youth as sensemaking devices to map risks and chart risk-mitigation strategies. Our findings indicate that many interview participants see the police more as a distinct environmental risk rather than a resource for risk mitigation or coping, with specific domains of risk and risk responses varying in terms of demographics, networks, and frames of interpretation.