"Fitting their profile": A geographical study of race, racism and policing in Nottingham

Abstract

Racism persists to be one of the most destructive forces in society. It is still present in our institutions that come to govern our cities and our public lives. The conjuncture of i) political rhetoric around the "failure" of multicultural policies in Britain (Amin, 2012); ii) the persistence of cross-ethnic unfamiliarity (Ivseon, 2007) ; iii) a post 9/11 policing of urban space entailing risk-based proactive methods of policing (Webster, 2007) and iv) the persistent racial disproportionality within the use of stop and search (EHRC, 2010) warrants in-depth investigation into police racism in the city.
This research is a geographical investigation into racism within the policing of Nottingham. I foreground the role of geography in racism through the meanings and imaginings encoded by the police to minority ethnic persons and their associated spatial environments and behavioural practices. Drawing on from the power of personal narrative on police encounters and the framing of ethnic and crime issues in the local media, I use the concepts of assemblage, imaginary and spatial governmentality to operationalize this geographical approach. I also use these concepts to contextualise contemporary risk-based and pre-empted methods of policing such as stop and search and dispersal orders. These methods come to not only target minority ethnic persons disproportionately, but also dispossess them of their confidence in using the public sphere, their confidence in the police and ultimately their right to the city.