Discrimination, arrest history, and major depressive disorder in the U.S. Black population
Introduction
Disproportionate exposure to race-related stress makes a significant negative contribution to mental health functioning among Blacks living in the US. Indeed, extant literature demonstrates a cross-sectional relationship between perceived discrimination and depression (e.g., Brown et al., 2000, Landrine and Klonoff, 1996, Gaylord-Harden and Cunningham, 2009, Hammond, 2012, Hudson et al., 2012), anxiety (e.g., Soto et al., 2011), and general psychological distress (e.g., Sellers et al., 2003, Chae et al., 2011, Krieger et al., 2011, Pieterse et al., 2012), as well as a prospective relationship between discrimination and depression (Jackson et al., 1996). The majority of these studies focus on everyday discriminatory acts such as being treated with less courtesy and respect, and major events such as being unfairly fired or denied employment. Arguably, the nature of stressful life events for some Blacks in America includes exposure to the criminal justice system. Aggressive surveillance and policing practices such as “stop and frisk” in predominantly Black neighborhoods increase the likelihood that Black individuals will be targeted, regardless of actual wrongdoing, and potentially arrested. Having a history of arrest could be a type of stressful life event that increases stress and contributes to depression in the Black population. The present study will be the first to empirically examine the additive effects of arrest history and everyday discrimination on major depressive disorder (MDD) in an ethnically diverse nationally representative sample of Blacks living in US communities.
Perception of discrimination may factor prominently in the life experience of ethnic minorities, immigrants, and other socially disadvantaged groups, as experiences of micro-aggressions attributed specifically to race can exceed an individual׳s coping resources and trigger stress responses (Sue et al., 2009). In American society, where racial categories are based primarily on skin color, dark-skinned immigrants, regardless of national or ethnic background, are often categorized as part of the Black racial minority (Waters, 1994, Portes, 1995) and consequently subjected to racial discrimination. That said, the frequency and impact of such exposures might differ among Black ethnic groups. For example, Hall and Carter (2006) found second generation Afro-Caribbeans (i.e., first-generation to be born in the US) reported more perceived discrimination over their lifetime than first generation Afro-Caribbeans (i.e., born outside of the US). For Black immigrants, evidence suggests that the longer immigrants are in the U.S., the stronger the association between discrimination and poor health (Ryan et al., 2006). For example, among a population of working-class Blacks, discrimination was strongly associated with risk of psychological distress among both US-born and foreign-born Black Americans (Krieger et al., 2011), but less is known about its association with depression specifically.
Symptoms related to depression associated with the experience of discrimination are lowered self-esteem (Fernando, 1984), lowered levels of general happiness and life satisfaction (Jackson et al., 1996), and psychological distress (Pieterse et al., 2012). Ong et al. (2009) found that chronic exposure to racial discrimination among Black graduate students was related to depressive symptoms, in part because discrimination increased the likelihood of other secondary life stressors such as marital discord or a drop in family׳s resources. Thus, in addition to the psychological stress response triggered by discrimination itself, certain discriminatory acts can propagate a chain of secondary stressors, which also lead to depressive reactions. Being arrested could be one such stressor.
The likelihood of being arrested in the US substantially increases if one is a Black male (Bonczar and Beck, 1997, Blumstein and Nakamura, 2009, Freiburger, 2010) for several reasons, including racism, unemployment, and restrictions on social opportunities (Massoglia, 2008). Black involvement with the criminal justice system has also been considered within the context of current controversy surrounding policing strategies, which increases the likelihood of being arrested (Fine et al., 2003, Brunson and Miller, 2006, Jones-Brown et al., 2010). For example, the New York City policing strategy, “stop and frisk,” which involves aggressive stops and searches of pedestrians was first introduced in the 1990s (Eck and Maguire, 2000, Skogan and Frydl, 2004). Blacks represented 51% of the stops while representing only 26% of the New York City population (Gelman et al., 2007) and they disproportionately report getting hassled and experiencing a range of additional negative police actions as well (Brunson and Miller, 2006). Blacks are under heightened surveillance regardless of whether or not they have committed a crime and find it difficult to present themselves as law abiding (Smith et al., 2007, Brunson and Miller, 2006). The discrimination faced by those exposed to the criminal justice system has been referred to as “rational racism,” the profiling and expectations imposed by society given prior knowledge about the individual (Romei and Ruggieri, 2013). For example, an individual with a criminal record may face unspoken discrimination in finding housing and employment (Kurlychek et al., 2007).
In considering the relationship between arrest and mental health, Theriot and Segal (2005) found that almost half of an outpatient mental health clinic sample had at least one contact with the criminal justice system before arrival at the agency, highlighting the interaction between the community mental health system and the criminal justice system. In a sample of 205 suicide cases in Britain, 20% had documented contact with the police within 3 months prior to the suicide (Linsley et al., 2007). Webb et al. (2011), in their epidemiological study of the Danish population, found that one third of all male suicides in their sample had a criminal justice history, and found that having any criminal justice history was linked with a more than 2-fold higher suicide risk in men and a 3-fold increase in women. Notably, the study found that the risk of suicide among those exposed to the criminal justice system was raised even among those who were only arrested and not sentenced or convicted (Webb et al., 2011). It is unclear whether other relevant psychiatric variables such as major depression may have contributed to this risk. These recent findings constitute a major public health concern that is particularly relevant to the US Black population, yet no study to date has examined the link between arrest, discrimination and MDD among the heterogynous Black populations in the US.
The main aim of this study was to determine the association between arrest history and MDD while taking into account the well-documented influence of discrimination on MDD, among African Americans, US-born Afro-Caribbeans and first generation Black immigrants. We hypothesized that having an arrest history would be associated with MDD, and that this relationship would be stronger for US-born African Americans and US-born Afro-Caribbeans compared to first-generation Black immigrants. We tested our hypotheses with both 12-month and lifetime MDD. Given the high prevalence of drug and alcohol-related arrests in the US (Snyder, 2012) and the relationship between substance use and MDD (Blanco et al., 2012), the analyses also adjust for the influence of lifetime alcohol and drug dependence.
Section snippets
Data
Cross-sectional study used data from The National Survey of American Life (NSAL)—a publically available nationally representative survey of the mental health of Americans of African descent (Jackson et al., 2004). The NSAL, which represents a multi-stage probability sample and is described in detail elsewhere (Heeringa et al., 2004, Jackson et al., 2004), assessed 6082 household resident adults (aged 18 and older) living in the 48 coterminous states in households with at least one adult
Descriptive
Overall, 55.6% of the sample was female and 91.7% was African-American. The mean age was 40.4 years and the mean annual household income was $36,891 (Table 1). Approximately 5.5% (n=254) of the Black population endorsed MDD in the past 12 months and 10.5% endorsed MDD (n=492) over the lifetime. Participants with 12-month MDD tended to be female, un-married, divorced, and US-born Afro-Caribbeans. In addition to these characteristics, participants with lifetime MDD also tended to be of a younger
Discussion
The primary purpose of the present study was to determine the association between an arrest history and MDD, while taking into account the relationship between everyday discrimination and MDD. Our findings support the existing literature demonstrating a relationship between discrimination and MDD among the Black population, and extends the literature by suggesting an arrest history is also associated with MDD among the Black population. Furthermore, the relative impact of an arrest history and
Acknowledgments
Support for this project was provided by PSC-CUNY Award 60024-39 40 (Dr. Anglin), which is jointly funded by the Professional Staff Congress and the City University of New York.
References (62)
- et al.
Being black and feeling blue: the mental health consequences of racial discrimination
Race and Society
(2000) - et al.
The association between self-reported racial discrimination and 12-month DSM-IV mental disorders among Asian Americans nationwide
Social Science and Medicine
(2007) - et al.
The relationship between perceived discrimination and Generalized Anxiety Disorder among African Americans, Afro Caribbeans, and non-Hispanic Whites
Journal of Anxiety Disorders
(2011) - et al.
Prevalence of mental illness in immigrant and non-immigrant U.S. Latino groups
American Journal of Psychiatry
(2008) - et al.
Differences among major depressive disorder with and without co-occurring substance use disorders and substance-induced depressive disorder: results from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions
Journal of Clinical Psychiatry
(2012) - et al.
Redemption in the presence of widespread criminal background checks
Criminology
(2009) - et al.
Lifetime Likelihood of Going to State or Federal Prison (Publication Number NCJ 1600092). Bureau of Statistics Special Report
(1997) - et al.
Young black men and urban policing in the United States
British Journal of Criminology
(2006) - et al.
Discrimination, attribution, and racial group identification: implications for psychological distress among Black Americans in the National Survey of American Life (2001–2003)
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry
(2011) - et al.
Relationship of mood disorders to violence
Journal of Nervous Mental Disease
(1990)
Have changes in policing reduced violent crime: an assessment of the evidence
Racism as a cause of depression
International Journal of Social Psychology
Anything can happen with police around: urban youth evaluate strategies of surveillance in public places
Journal of Social Issues
The effects of gender, family status, and race on sentencing decisions
Behavioral Sciences and the Law
The impact of racial discrimination and coping strategies on internalizing symptoms in African American youth
Journal of Youth and Adolescence
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 Association
The Immigrant Paradox in Children and Adolescents: Is Becoming American a Developmental Risk?
Mental health of African Americans and Caribbean blacks in the United States: results from the National Epidemiological Survey on alcohol and related conditions
American Journal of Public Health
Working with West Indian families
The relationship between racial identity, ethnic identity, and perceptions of racial discrimination in an Afro-Caribbean descent sample
Journal of Black Psychology
Taking it like a man: masculine role norms as moderators of the racial discrimination-depressive symptoms association among African American men
American Journal of Public Health
Concordance of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview Version 3.0 (CIDI 3.0) with standardized clinical assessments in the WHO World Mental Health Surveys
International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research
Sample designs and sampling methods for the collaborative psychiatric epidemiology studies (CPES)
International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research
Cortisol and depression: three questions for psychiatry
Psychological Medicine
The relationship between socioeconomic position and depression among a US nationally representative sample of African Americans
Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology
Racism and the physical and mental health status of African Americans: a thirteen year national panel study
Ethnicity and Disease
The National Survey of American life: a study of racial, ethnic and cultural influences on mental disorders and mental health
International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research
The world mental health (WMH) survey initiative version of the world health organization (WHO) composite international diagnostic interview (CIDI)
Racial discrimination, psychological distress, and self-rated health among US-born and foreign-born Black Americans
American Journal of Public Health
Enduring risk: old criminal records and prediction of future criminal involvement
Crime and Delinquency
Cited by (11)
Structural Racism and Well-Being Among Young People in the U.S.
2023, American Journal of Preventive MedicineRacial microaggressions and trauma symptoms in a black American sample: The moderating role of self-compassion
2023, Journal of Contextual Behavioral ScienceUnderstanding the Healthy Immigrant Effect in the Context of Mental Health Challenges: A Systematic Critical Review
2022, Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health