Social reintegration taken hostage
Social profiling particularly affects individuals whose behaviour and use of public spaces deviates from social norms, contributing to the exclusion of marginalized populations such as the homeless. In 2016, 10 outreach workers from an urban centre in the province of Québec who work with populations likely to be the target of social profiling were interviewed as part of a research project on the kinds and repercussions of social profiling. The results of this study indicate that social profiling, mainly done by police officers, leads to changes in the professional practices of outreach workers. We try to show how social profiling leads insidiously to the exclusion – directly and indirectly – of certain populations, going so far as to transform frontline practices and decrease chances of social reintegration.