Police discrimination and police distrust among ethnic minority adolescents in Germany

Abstract

In light of ongoing debates about racially motivated police violence, this paper examines two separate but interrelated phenomena: instances of police discrimination and mistrust in police and the judicial system among ethnic minorities in Germany. Analyses are carried out based on waves 1, 3, and 5 of the CILS4EU-DE data collected among 14 to 20 year-old respondents in Germany. The focus of the paper lies on young men from the Middle East, as well as Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa, who—as our study demonstrates—tend to disproportionally more often report discrimination experiences and particularly low levels of trust in police and courts compared to other ethnic minorities and the majority populations in Germany, and partially also in comparison to their female counterparts. We also show that more frequent experiences of police discrimination are associated with greater distrust of the police and partially also with courts among young men from the Middle East, North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Female adolescents from similar backgrounds are also more distrustful of the police, but this is not explained by their own experiences of police discrimination.

Discrimination Experiences and Trust in the Police – Evidence from the DeZIM.panel

“…Previous research on the European context found trust in the police to be initially high among foreign born inhabitants which erodes over time, probably due to discrimination experiences (Czymara/Mitchell 2023). Among adolescent men, especially from the MENA region, Kogan et al (2024) find a positive relationship between direct discrimination experiences with the police and police distrust. However, none of these studies so far included a large enough sample of the entire population as well as different indicators of discrimination experiences.…”

“…Previous research has shown that immigrants and racialized minorities, compared to the so-called majority population, have significantly more negative experiences with the police and especially those of the second and later generations report lower levels of institutional trust in the police (e.g. DeZIM, 2023; Wilkes/Wu 2019; GBD 2021; Kogan et al 2024).…”

“…Bradford et al 2009;Bradford 2011;Hohl et al 2010). Research has been scarcer for other European countries (Röder/Mühlau 2012; Czymara/Mitchell 2023; Kogan et al 2024). Previous research on the European context found trust in the police to be initially high among foreign born inhabitants which erodes over time, probably due to discrimination experiences (Czymara/Mitchell 2023).…”

“…2 We know that these contacts increase vividly for younger people, men and people of color, see e.g. Kogan et al 2024. (Bostancı et al 2022), in the health care system (DeZIM 2023) and on the labour market (Veit/Arikan 2023).…”

“…Furthermore, due to data availability, previous research on trust in the police among immigrants had to aggregate data from different European countries (e.g. Röder/Mühlau 2012; Czymara/Mitchell 2023) or focus on adolescents only (Kogan et al 2024).…”