In recent decades, concerns about crime in Chile have triggered important transformations in the way the problem is governed. The participatory turn, prevention strategies, and the incorporation of different actors in the provision of security have been added to the classic roles of punishment and control that are typical of the criminal justice system. Rather than a change their approach, the analysis of this trajectory reveals processes that show a sinuous appropriation of elements of the risk management approach that were imported from the Anglo-Saxon north and implemented during Chile's neoliberal democracy. This article analyzes, through a qualitative methodology, how in this process, the participatory turn, and the citizen dimension played a key role in this transformation. Our findings show that the rhetorical use of the concept of citizen security was central to these transformations, since its laxity and conceptual imprecision made it possible for the center-left governments to implement elements of the crime prevention approach and to incorporate new actors in the production of security at different levels of public management, creating a new field of action in Chilean criminal justice policy.