How are young people in Sweden affected by racial profiling? : A qualitative study of young people's experiences of racial profiling.

The purpose of this essay is to study how perceived racial profiling have affected young people beteween the ages of 12 and 18 years, concerning mental health and trust in the police. The purpose is furthermore to study what kind of support those young people wished from social workers. Through qualitative semi-structured interviews we collected narratives about perceived racial profiling by the police in Sweden. The results show that racial profiling had several negative consequenses such as nigthmares, anger, memory loss, feelings of guilt and shame. Further, the results also show that trust in the police was very low among those who experienced racial profiling. In this regard social workers have an important role to fill, the respondents wished to receive support and counseling from culturally sensitive and empathetic social workers with knowlegde of racial profiling as an existing fenomena in Sweden.