Race and Racism in the Social Construction of Dangerous Classes. Police Culture and Police Practice in the French Urban Outskirts [G]
Fabien JobardNew dangerous classes seem to have emerged in the French urban areas in the last 30 years. Is this social group a product of racism or more generally of race? The contribution focuses on the police, one of the most important labellisation and categorisation agency at stake. With the help of second hand data on police socialisation and on the recruitment processes, and above all of first-hand quantitative data and ethnographic data, the text shows evidence of institutionalized racism. But the observation shows that the labellisation undertaken by the police, which determines their behaviour, is a consequence of an expectancy/reaction process where race plays only a secondary role.
Swiss Journal of Sociology, 34 (2), 2008, 261-280
