Punish, prevent, or protect? How local authorities distribute care and coercion in a French city

Magda Boutros’ research examines how policing and criminal justice institutions (re)produce social inequalities, and how people act collectively to challenge them. Her first book, The Police, Activists, and Knowledge (2026), examines the social movements that brought the issues of police violence, racial profiling, and police impunity to the forefront of public conversations in France. Drawing on a comparative ethnography of three activist coalitions, the book analyses how activists challenge the police's epistemic power (i.e. their ability to determine what is known and what remains hidden about policing). It shows that that the way in which activists produce knowledge about policing and inequalities shapes how they define the problem of racialized policing, and how they influence the public and political debate about policing, equality, and justice. 

In another project, Magda published with Aline Daillère a report for the Defender of Rights, entitled Fines, Evictions and Stops (2025), which examines policing practices aiming to “evict undesirables” from urban spaces. 

She is currently working on the production and reception of local security policies in three mixed neighbourhoods.