Interviews with community members, community leaders, and service providers in four remote aboriginal communities in northern Ontario show that alcohol was viewed as the most serious social problem in three out of four of the communities and was perceived to be at the root of most other community problems. Also, the police were seen as the social agency most qualified to address either social problems or problems related to alcohol use. Most other social agencies in the community were viewed as limited in their ability to deal effectively with these kinds of problems. Police occurrence data show that the police in each community reacted to calls that involved domestic and nondomestic disputes, problems of order, and requests for a broad range of services. The majority of situations to which the police in each community responded involved alcohol use. The findings challenge the view that the coercive powers of police define their social involvement; in the four communities examined, the police were valued for their ability to provide primary security that other social agencies cannot. The results have theoretical and policy implications for addressing the overrepresentation of aboriginal people in correctional institutions, the trend toward the "indigenization" of policing services, and the development of community-based or problem-oriented policing. 7 tables, 2 notes, and 53 references