Priced out of your future : how housing hardship increases adolescents’ exposure to police-initiated contacts. Evidence from the United Kingdom

This study examines how childhood housing tenure instability affects police con- tacts among adolescents, an underexplored yet consequential dimension of youth interactions with law enforcement.Analyzing data from 10,608 participants in the United Kingdom Millennium Cohort Study (2001–2015), we construct a novel measure of cumulative housing hardship, capturing the compounded effects of frequent residential moves and tenure instability (e.g., growing up in cost-burdened households, experiencing downward mobility, or being priced out of homeowner- ship). Logistic regression results indicate that adolescents living in unstable non- ownership homes or who were exposed to downward tenure mobility trajectories during childhood are significantly more likely to experience police-initiated con- tact (stop and search, caution, or arrest) than their peers who either remained residentially stable or moved within homeownership.However, youth conduct alone does not fully explain these disparities. Using Karlson-Holm-Breen mediation analysis, we find that, beyond externalizing disorders, traditionally linked to an increased risk of engaging in violent and antisocial behaviors, social disconnection serves as a significant mediating pathway. These findings challenge conventional criminological perspectives that attribute police contact primarily to individual criminal propensity, instead highlighting housing hardship as a structural driver of early legal system exposure.