Private security policing by ‘ethnic matching’ in Swedish suburbs: avoiding and managing accusations of ethnic discrimination

Recent research has stressed the dependency of the private security industry on public recognition and legitimacy. This article discusses how one Swedish security company, through the work of its individual security officers ‘on the ground’, carries out legitimation work in relation to the public. The empirical focus in this examination is on the company's work vis-à-vis youths from ‘foreign’ backgrounds in the ethnically and socioeconomically segregated suburbs of one of the largest cities in Sweden. The ethnographic data collected through field-based interviews and observations on the security company officers’ work, perceptions and views point to a specific type of legitimacy management strategy adopted by the company in question in its operational context: ‘policing by ethnic matching’. The article shows how this strategy is implemented to avoid anticipated accusations of ethnic discrimination, to manage such accusations when they nevertheless occur and to repair the legitimacy of the business when it is seen to have been damaged. The techniques used in the company's efforts to advance its legitimacy claims are shown to rely on impression and emotion management.