This paper presents an analysis of Community Intervention Teams (CIT), a risk-oriented multi-agency crime prevention program in Sweden targeting youth who are at risk of engaging in criminal gang activities. We have analysed policy documents and information material created by the Swedish government, the Swedish National Police Board and the National Board of Health and Welfare in conjunction with the national implementation of the CIT program. The results show the use of a risk assessment manual is perceived as the only legitimate tool for archiving success in work with CIT, both from an individual and societal perspective. This simplifies the criminological field by focusing solely on the individual as the starting point for crime prevention and ignores the impact of structural factors behind crime and crime prevention. The use of the concept of risk constructs the target group as both potentially dangerous criminals and as a group of vulnerable youth, which needs to be saved to a better life. This duality creates what we choose to call benevolent surveillance, namely controlling interventions that are legitimized by rehabilitative ideals.