The Historical Context: Race and Policing 1945-90

About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about race and policing since the Second World War, and especially the idea that BAME communities are “overpoliced and underprotected”, focusing in particular on: (i) the impact of immigration policy on policing, including the death of Joy Gardner during a police raid on her home in 1993; (ii) the disproportionate use of stop and search powers on black communities and the tensions this has caused since the 1970s; (iii) police failures to protect BAME communities from racist violence, from the 1958 race riots to the New Cross fire of 1981.

About the lecturer

Dr Anthony Gunter is Senior Lecturer and Programme Lead for Childhood and Youth Studies at the Open University. His research focuses on black youth subcultures and the policing of BAME communities. He is author of Race, Gangs and Youth Violence: Policy, Prevention and Policing (2017) and Growing Up Bad? Black Youth, ‘Road’ Culture and Badness in an East London Neighbourhood (2010).