The Citizen app and the habits of becoming police in the 21st century

Abstract Boasting 10 million users across 60 US cities, Citizen has emerged as a leading safety app in a crowded market space. Building on scholarship that frames the app as a ‘force multiplier’ (Turner and Milburn 2025), this analysis examines how Citizen’s gamified features amplify police power—understood through Mark Neocleous’s framework as an ordering philosophy rather than a law enforcement strategy. In doing so, the broader transactions police power trades in for the 21st century are examined. By analysing the app’s gamified mapping function, I demonstrate how it conditions users for future scenarios through its network of users. Reading gamification critically, this study reveals how Citizen’s system transcends traditional concepts, illuminating police power’s processual nature within a larger structure of habit formation.