“Police violence can affect anyone, but there are additional consequences to consider if that violence is perceived to occur because of one’s skin color or ethnicity,” said Motley, whose dissertation at Washington University-St. Louis was based on interviews with 300 Black college students in St. Louis who had personally experienced or witnessed police violence or watched it on video.

“There are quantifiable harmful effects, even if the person was an observer of the violence, and these can endure for a significantly long time.”

How do rates of exposure to police violence that is perceived to be motivated by racism vary across the gender, ethnicity, and birthplace of young Black and Latinx people living in the United States?

Researchers in the Boston College School of Social Work have received a two-year, $395,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Evidence for Action program to find out. 

Robert O. Motley Jr. is an affiliated scholar in the Justice Police Center at the Urban Institute and an assistant professor at Boston College School of Social Work, who has received research funding from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, the Fahs-Beck Fund for Research and Experimentation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Evidence for Action program.