Over the last fifteen years a higher demand for security has been recorded in the political market of democracies. Policy-makers have increasingly used contracts to safeguard the peace and safety of the citizenry. "Governing by contract" has been considered one of the most significant processes of political-administrative change. But how do urban security policies managed "by contract" work in practice? Should contracts be considered an effective solution for governing crime and disorder at the local level?This book answers these questions, focusing on urban security policy in Italy in the years 1994-2012. The first part of the volume is devoted to a comparative analysis of the urban security policies in the UK, France, and Italy. The second part is dedicated to the analysis of the Italian case, and in particular to an ex-ante impact evaluation of security pacts - written contracts issued by local governments. The third and final part is then committed to an ex-post impact evaluation of the pacts aimed to test their efficacy in governing crime at the local level.The book gives a unique coverage - in a crossroad between political science and criminology - of how contracts are used for governing crime and disorder, with the aid of cutting-edge quantitative techniques in the social sciences such as quantitative narrative analysis and fixed effects regression model. The volume will be of interest to political scientists and criminologists specialized in urban security, as well as policy-makers interested in practical implications of governing crime and disorder by contract.