May 1, 2021
“Health-Related Consequences of Unfair Treatment by Police” is the title of a lecture Christopher Dennison, University at Buffalo assistant sociology professor, will deliver in the final Brown Bag Lunch Series talk of the spring semester at the State University at Fredonia on Wednesday from noon to 1 p.m.
Dr. Dennison will introduce research showing disparities in who are most likely to experience unfair treatment by police, followed by his own research which examines how experiencing unfair treatment by police is harmful and how the consequences differ between White and Black populations.
“The central set of findings from this study is that among both groups, those who experience unfair police treatment, report more depression, illegal drug use and thoughts of suicide compared with those who have never experienced unfair police treatment,” Dennison explained. “However, some of these differences – that is, the differences in depression, illegal drug use and thoughts of suicide between those with and without experiences of unfair police treatment – were even bigger among White people than among Black people.”