Are security forces loyal to the state always instruments of top-down social control? When and how can an extensive and robust security apparatus provide the space for bottom-up forms of resistance to state policies? The dominant theories of authoritarian resilience suggest that a state’s security apparatus is an integral mechanism of top-down social control that is repressive of bottom-up forms of mobilization and engagement. In his study of civil society and state power in Jordan, Wiktorowicz (2000) challenges the assumption that grassroots organizing and a proliferation of civil associations necessarily promotes democratization. Instead he demonstrates that civil organizations in Jordan are embedded in a web of bureaucratic practices and legal codes that allow those in power to monitor and regulate the citizens’ activities. However, in the same way that the growth of civil society organizations is not simply a manifestation of bottom-up forces, the purposes and means through which security forces operate are not necessarily straightforward expressions of top-down power. This paper employs interviews and content analysis of newspapers, magazines, and online forums to map out contestations over the police’s enforcement of “decency” (or religious and moral codes of conduct) in public spaces in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. I argue that as the police forces have become more and more involved in embedded surveillance and active policing strategies, they are also increasingly pulled into the role of alleviating the tensions and responding to communal struggles to define the UAE’s public sphere. Contestations over law enforcement are revelatory of larger debates about the role of foreigners in Emirati society and which modes of conduct should be acceptable the public spaces of Dubai and Abu Dhabi.