“My Perception Ain’t Never Gonna Change Because the Police Ain’t Never Gonna Change”: Negative Police Experiences and Differential Estrangement among Latinx and Black Residents

In marginalized neighborhoods, Latinx and Black Americans disproportionately experience negative policing practices and legal estrangement, a process of detachment and alienation from law enforcement that is pervasive in communities of color. Despite sociological advances, there remains an empirical gap in understanding how legal estrangement is experienced across Latinx and Black communities. Drawing on 20 in-depth interviews with Latinx and Black men and women from marginalized communities in Riverside and San Bernardino, California, this study examines the relationship between policing and legal estrangement. Findings indicate that estrangement varies across intersecting identities, social networks, neighborhoods, and institutional contexts, particularly through enduring abuse of police power and unreliable protection. I conceptualize these patterns as differential estrangement, a framework for understanding the contextual and intersectional dynamics of legal estrangement. Participants’ accounts offer an unruly sociological perspective for rethinking safety in disadvantaged neighborhoods and barrios by reducing reliance on criminalization while investing in communities.