| Popis: |
We examine the role that exposure to neighborhood and police violence plays in the legal socialization of adolescents aged 11 to 14 years living in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. In a context of idiosyncratic and violent policing, where the state's ability to control crime is low, we assess the extent to which being exposed to neighborhood crime and violence (e.g., listening to gunshots and witnessing or hearing about citizens carrying guns, being robbed, or selling drugs), aggressive police behavior with violent undertones (e.g., certain forcible types of police stops and arrests), and/or outright violent police behavior (officers assaulting a member of the public) is associated with the development of adolescents’ judgements about the legitimacy of the law. Analyzing data from a cohort-based, four-wave longitudinal survey of 2005-born young people living in São Paulo from 2016 to 2019, we use growth curve models to estimate developmental trajectories of legitimacy beliefs. Results suggest that individual exposure to police violence is associated with the process of legal socialization and that, above and beyond this individual effect, adolescents attending schools where other students are exposed to neighborhood violence tend to develop more negative views about the legitimacy of legal authority over time. |
