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This book exposes how policing and licensing practices shape UK nightlife as a racialized 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.
'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
‘Illuminates how “race” is evoked to police the night as a crime scene, while racism itself hides in the dark.’ Lambros Fatsis, City St George’s, University of London
‘Policing Race and Nightlife is a powerful and deeply necessary book. It confronts uncomfortable truths and exposes how racism in policing is not incidental but systemic and sustained through everyday practices of control. As Dr Wicks powerfully states, “Racism is approached as an ideology and method which adapts itself in selecting its targets at night and finding cultural justifications for controlling some groups rather than others.” Dr Wicks reveals why meaningful licensing reform is essential and why society must reckon with the ways exclusion, surveillance and inequality have been normalised. This book is a call to conscience and a vital intervention for anyone committed to justice, accountability and real social change.' Charisse Beaumont, Black Lives in Music
‘This insightful book offers a compelling and deeply researched exploration of how policing and licensing practices shape and respond to the night-time economy. With its rigorous analysis and engaging style, Wicks has produced an invaluable resource for scholars, practitioners, and anyone interested in the intersection of urban life, racialised practices, and law enforcement.' Bethan Loftus, Bangor University
Introduction
2. Situating the Research: Methods and Reflections
3. Police Training and the Diversity Agenda: Maintaining the Racial Status Quo
4. Night-Time Licensing and the Power of the Police
5. Policing ‘Urban Nights’ and the Acceptable White Local Frame
6. Excluding Gypsies and Travellers from Nightlife: Historical Policing Practices, Surveillance and Dress Codes
7. Conclusions