Racial Profiling, Anti-Black Racism, Black Resistance and the Policing of Young Londoners

Tim Head, Emmanuel Onapa, Dawud Smith and Infinity Agbetu

The British Journal of Criminology, 2026, vol. 66, issue 1, 92-110

Abstract: In this article, drawing on findings from an ethnographic study (2018–21) and a Participatory Action Research project in a London Borough, we explore the nature, impact, and forms of resistance to, police racial profiling. Centring accounts of ‘policed’ Black young Londoners we develop a reconceptualization of racial profiling in sociological terms as a dynamic process, understood as both didactic and dialogic; ‘didactic’ given the ways that policed individuals are compelled, uncomfortably, to ‘learn’ about their place in the social formation through profiling interactions; and ‘dialogic’ given the way that profiling instigates a series of claims and counterclaims whereby racist tropes and categorizations can be consolidated, contested and/or resisted as part of an ongoing process of cultural production.

Keywords: racial profiling; anti-Black racism; racialization; Metropolitan Police Service (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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