Racial Tropes of ‘Street Gangs’ and the Aggressive Policing of Black Youth and Other Youth of Colour

Abstract

The article examines police violence towards Black youth and other youth of colour in a neighbourhood of Montreal where gang policing has been in force for years. It combines findings from qualitative interviews with young people and evidence on gang policing to argue that racial tropes of ‘street gangs’ legitimate aggressive policing by reinforcing racial ideologies of innate Black deviance and conflating delinquency with mature criminality. Aggressive policing results in excessive police stops, coercion and intimidation, and acts of verbal and physical abuse. The article proposes that future research must consider how racial disparities in police stops and police violence are rooted in broader regimes of aggressive policing.