Thijs Jeursen’s The Vigilant Citizen: Everyday Policing and Insecurity in Miami is an engaging and at times staggering ethnographic account of the way ideas about ‘good (American) citizenship’ are bound up with insecurity and vigilance. This conversation digs into Jeursen’s realization of the scope of US vigilance; being a European ethnographer of North America; raising kids to be critical of policing; and what can be done with scholarly critique.