Premodern societies, characterized by small immobile communities, facilitated intensive mutual surveillance, which was tightly linked to informal social control. Urban societies rely more on surveillance as part of formal social controls. This tendency is amplified in modern metropolitan societies, where mobility and communications have effectively dissolved place-based local communities. In Great Britain, it has been easier to introduce neighborhood watch in relatively affluent low-crime areas than in poorer high-crime ones. Efforts to introduce neighborhood watch into metropolitan society have not proven very successful so far. While neighborhood watch is implemented in residential areas, closed-circuit television is more often installed in stores, malls, public buildings, parking areas, and city centers. Local patterns of crime motivation, types of victimization, physical circumstances, and many other factors may influence the effectiveness of this approach. Further research should focus on the context, method, mechanisms, and outcomes of different forms of surveillance. 21 references