This chapter draws on the stress process perspective to examine the mental health repercussions of criminal legal contact in the United States. Rates of criminal legal contact—encompassing police stops, arrests, jail and prison incarceration, and supervision via probation and parole—have risen dramatically over the past half century, yet their consequences for mental health remain incompletely understood. After reviewing the key tenets of the stress process perspective, we review the unequal distribution of criminal legal contact across the population, highlighting how demographic characteristics, adverse childhood experiences, and pre-existing mental health conditions concentrate this exposure among already vulnerable and marginalized groups. We then review research on the mental health repercussions for people who directly experience criminal legal contact and for people—including children, romantic partners, and parents—who vicariously experience criminal legal contact. Throughout, we underscore how responses to criminal legal contact are heterogeneous, varying across population subgroups and types of contact. We conclude by arguing that the stress process perspective provides a robust framework for continuing to advance our understanding of how criminal legal contact shapes mental health across the life course.