ABSTRACT
Prevention is directed towards potential victims; it puts the victims at the centre of analyses and policies. If the category of oppression was central in welfare, that of victimization is central in post-welfare. The current prevalence of discourses and policies in the name of victimization confuse and retrace the boundaries between what must be considered private and what must be considered public, between public interventions and private interventions. Safety and security, in short, in the sense of being sheltered from the risks of common crime, have become the principal objective and the main subject of criminologies and criminal policies. The issue of preventing street crimes and victimization from incivility has become a principal issue more or less throughout Europe. There is a European Forum on security that brings together many cities, to which the counterpart organization the Forum Italiano belongs. Security plans have been written and implemented in many Italian cities.
