ABSTRACT
Modern policing is both pervasive and authoritative. The contemporary police officer
is a patrol officer, able and willing to insert state authority into the everyday of life
on the street, to win compliance to order through displaying and reinforcing the
power inherent in the uniform, the badge and the tools of coercion (Rubinstein,
1973; Walker, 1989). Police officers represent the most visible face of state authority,
and work to achieve a seeming ubiquity across the space of the city. The patrol car
symbolizes the free-floating nature of modern state power; police officers assert sover-
eign claim to the streets through the simple act of cruising.
