The concept of community policing has been hailed as a paradigm shift regarding how policing is viewed and practiced in late modern societies. On its idealistic surface, community policing features fundamental objectives and opportunities that enhance the values of democracy, social justice, local responsiveness and involvement, and accountability as part of better policing based on spirits of consensus, community, and cooperation; however, a critical examination of the practical realities of community policing suggests that its practices may challenge and undermine, rather than enhance, these values. On the basis of empirical data from a field study in a large Canadian metropolitan area, this paper suggests that community policing selects and constructs community as selective social, economic, and ethnic interests and entities through the projection of local enemies within conflicting urban life spheres; that it systematically targets, punishes, and excludes socially and morally marginalized behaviors and people; that it confirms and even reinforces, rather than counterbalances, the police hegemonic role at the central core of policing; and that it undermines the legalistic principles at the center of professional policing. These practical characteristics of community policing produce major social, legal, and democratic implications for its future as a key concept in contemporary police power and control. 65 references