The last time I saw a neighborhood watchman in Turkey was in 1988 when I was still in elementary school. By the early 1990s, as police forces in cities became stronger, the neighborhood guards who assisted police at night by patrolling on foot and blowing their whistles to assure people that "all is well" had all but become extinct.

But in early 2016, the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H), an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) — which Ankara considers a terrorist group — intensified ditch-and-barrier warfare in Turkey’s Kurdish-populated southeast. That and a sharp escalation in local and transnational violence by Salafi networks linked to the Islamic State (IS) compelled the state to pay more attention to the security of cities.

Nevertheless, there is still an acute shortage of personnel against the PKK in the southeast and also against IS in provinces bordering on Syria, as well as in major cities like Istanbul. That's why Ankara resurrected the neighborhood guards/watchmen system, to improve coverage of residential neighborhoods. Ankara also hopes that the neighborhood watch system will contribute to human intelligence-gathering in cities.

The watch system that was recently launched in the southeastern urban centers of Sirnak, Siirt, Hakkari and Diyarbakir was working well, so the government decided to expand the system. At the moment, 5,400 mostly young neighborhood guards are working in 20 provincial centers and towns to help police maintain law and order. They are paid monthly salaries of $500-$700. Most of them are armed with pistols and AK-47 rifles. Some are patrolling unarmed.