At a time when scholars point to the emergence of a new policing model aimed at mitigating the devastating consequences of drug policing, police violence towards People Who Use Drugs (PWUD) persists. We examine this discrepancy by investigating officers’ perceptions of PWUD and how these perceptions shape their routine policing work and the meanings they create around it. We find that officers characterise PWUD as mentally ill and socially excluded criminals who threaten community security. This requalification – from PWUD to persona non grata in public domains – serves as a precondition for their criminalisation and legitimises the use of physical and moral violence. Instrumental social control becomes acceptable and morally valuable through pervasive criminalisation, aligning with officers’ understanding of their mandate and fulfilling their moral contract with the institution.
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