The article examines vigilante activities in one town, and discusses the motivational factors behind those activities and the local assumption that crime, especially "black crime," was out of control. The article observes that the net effect of vigilantism and more formal types of crime control such as curfews is to restrict the right of young people to remain in certain public spaces. It concludes that any examination of young people and public space should take a more expansive view of policing space, one that includes the localized and autonomous practices such as vigilantism. Policymakers and civic officials need to examine the ways social and economic change, as well as new practices of governance, set the contexts in which vigilantism and other forms of autonomous action may arise. References