Savage natures: Police and the wolf

Abstract

This article picks up the trail of the wolf-in-police, from its European origins to the western frontiers of the United States and, finally, to the imaginaries of contemporary police power. We describe the role of the wolf as a prototypical criminal “enemy” of European and early American law, order, and civilization, the police obsession with the wolf as a mythical symbol of American indigeneity and a material threat to settler colonial order, and the moments in which cops adopt the image of the wolf as an avatar through which to articulate a police vision of natural order. Through an interdisciplinary reading of some key texts and cultural artifacts, we contribute to theoretical understandings of police power's role in the fabrication of settler colonial order by illustrating the unique durability and centrality of the wolf in the police imagination.