Italy

In this chapter, we explored community policing in Italy from its background, present -ing some of its programs. In 2001, the introduction of community policing at a national level aimed at being an innovative strategy for increasing satisfaction with police activity. Unfortunately, this strategy was only partially implemented and poorly evaluated due to budget limitations, which also probably will affect the future of the Italian police. Other initiatives, such as neighborhood watch groups, grew spontaneously at the local level but did not develop homogenously across the country, and any central attempt to reg -ulate the phenomenon failed. Voluntarism of regional and local authorities provided posi -tive leverage for promoting community policing, but the inner risk resides in not having a national strategy on this topic, although it is true that today, national police also pays much more attention to citizen needs than in the past.