Abstract

Last year the Italian political debate on urban safety has strongly been affected by the theme of city watchers. The hypothesis introduced in this contribution is that the so called «Ronde» (i.e. city watchers), as they are improperly defined in Italian terms, do not represent at all an original innovation in the panorama of the initiatives of crime prevention neither at international level nor at the Italian one. As a matter of fact Law n. 94/2009 has not been introducing new forms of vigilantism in Italy, but rather regularizes groups of citizens that practice what is worldwide known as Neighbourhood Wardens or Crime Watch schemes.