This research focuses on the Sicilian police during the Garibaldian dictatorship of 1860 and analyses how the “red shirts” ruled the island. The goal of this work is to retrace continuities and discontinuities of local control, public order and police service during the construction of the modern Italian state. The new Sicilian revolution brought about the collapse of the Bourbon regime in Sicily and the beginning of a deep social and political crisis all over the country. Therefore, the main goal of the local administration was to guarantee public order and respect for the law. In order to gain the support of local elites, the administration had to achieve a new social and political balance based on a national outlook. New practical instruments to rule the country were developed alongside existing military ones. This thesis provides a different interpretation of the history of the Garibaldian dictatorship through the “police prism”, in an effort to understand the complexity of the Sicilian context. In the end, this work underpins new elements that are useful to grasp the key moment of the Italian Unification and suggests a different interpretation of this phenomenon compared to the traditional analysis of the subject.