Policing Race and Nightlife - by Nikhaela Wicks (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

This book exposes how policing and licensing practices shape UK nightlife as a racialised space, with harmful consequences for Black and Gypsy and Traveller communities. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and interviews with key nightlife stakeholders, it reveals how governance structures - from police-led meetings to licensing decisions - work to suppress racialized night-time events and Black male performers.

Through critical analysis of police diversity training, the discriminatory actions of door staff and security teams as well as street-level policing practices, this study offers a timely intervention into debates on race, surveillance and nightlife. It is essential reading for scholars of policing, racial justice and night-time economy studies in the UK and beyond.

Review Quotes

'Illuminates how 'race' is evoked to police the night as a crime scene, while racism itself hides in the dark.' Lambros Fatsis, University of London

'Drawing on rich and compelling data and analysis, this is an original, engaging insight into how the UK's Night Time Economy is racialised and produced through a lens of "acceptable whiteness".' Emily Nicholls, University of York

About the Author