The aim of this study is to gain an insight of which views young non-white males have of the Stockholm police and what sort of treatment they receive from the police in their residential areas. The study is based on a qualitative research method that was based on ten individual interviews with young non-white males between the ages of 16–19. All the participants in the study were of sub-saharan African and Middle Eastern descent and resided in the same socially segregated area in Stockholm. Four themes were identified during the study, namely: young non-white male’s views of the police, young non-white male’s experiences with the police, young non-white male’s trust in the police and lastly the impact of attire on police treatments. Furthermore, the results have been analyzed with the help of previous research, theoretical frameworks such as stamping theory and stigma, and concepts such as structural discrimination and racism. The results in these studies showed that young non-white males have a skewed view of the police and a low confidence in the police and the work they perform. The negative view of the police is based on the fact that the young non-white males have had previous experiences of negative police treatments and believe that their skin color, appearance, and residential areas are in fact the reason for the police stops. This result in connection with the descriptions of racial profiling has its similarities as the concept is about people getting treated differently due to their race/ethnicity.

The purpose of this study is to examine the media coverage of a police shooting in Bagarmossen, Stockholm. According to the news the police claimed it was an act of self-defense as a man fired a gun at them which is why the man was shot to death, but a month later stated that the man had not even been armed. The following study seeks to analyze the differences and similarities between articles published before and after the modified information. It also examines social actors present and how the media portrays them. We applied discourse analysis on sixteen news articles to answer our research questions. The prominent differences we found were in the portrayals of the incident and the most protrusive social actors in­volved. Before the police changed their state­ment, the man shot dead was portrayed as a criminal with deviant behavior. After the changed statement, the media portrayed him as a family man with strong ties to his hometown. The police were another social actor in our study, portrayed before the changed statements as efficient with a strong work ethic. After, the police were por­trayed as dishonest and lacking severely in their communica­tion as a legitimate authori­ty. One of the similarities found before and after the changed statement was the pres­ence of the local community as a social actor and its significance for the news media's portrayal of the incident.

Police brutality is a problematic feature of the American society that has caused civil unrest among the vast majority. The excessive use of force from American police forces sparked off a wave of protests during 2020 in which people called for the abolishment of unnecessary and unethical police violence against civilians. The importance of the Black Lives Matter movement has been highlighted by the authoritarian response to the protests and the inhumane treatment of ethnic minorities in the United States. But given the strong protection of the freedom of speech and the freedom of assembly in the U.S. constitution, the problem seems to be intertwined with inappropriate attitudes of officials rather than written shortcomings in the law. In this thesis, I investigate how structural racism has affected the freedom of assembly in the United States, which is done through a critical review of relevant literature and documents concerning contemporary challenges for the Black Lives Matter movement. Various reports have addressed the mishandling of Black Lives Matter protests from American police forces and their arbitrarily use of the law to disperse them, e.g., by classifying predominantly peaceful demonstrations as “unlawful assemblies”. This is the kind of dishonest behaviour that I scrutinize further in this study, which is of great importance since it affects peoples’ human rights and ultimately threatens the collective well-being of the American people.  I also investigate and critically discuss the components of a sustainable understanding of the freedom of assembly, which is done through a theoretical analysis of the views of Ronald Dworkin and Jeremy Waldron. From this analysis, I learn about substantial problems that may arise from different theoretical understandings of this right and about the importance of spreading awareness of different forms of racism. Only by acknowledging the existence of racism in our societies, we can protect vulnerable groups from derogatory behaviours and together achieve social justice.