The Guardian Model is a mentality of how one upholds public safety in a community; it contrasts with the so-called Warrior Model of Public Safety. The Warrior Mentality focuses on combating crime through hard enforcement; this involves focusing on the arresting of criminals and enforcing the law with batons and firearms. The Guardian Mentality focuses on presence, prevention, and social influence as a means of upholding public safety. It does not do away with hard enforcement, but it emphasizes soft methods to ensure compliance with the law and to create a culture that builds a safer community. While regular law enforcement can foster a Guardian Mentality, the Civic Guardians specialize in it.

The Civic Guardians’ goal is to maintain Comprehensive Social Deterrence, a holistic way of deterring all disorder, bad behavior, and crime through constant social presence. To create this deterrence requires the institutional infrastructure of the “Giant Net.” The “Giant Net” is inspired by the “Koban” system in Japanese policing; it conceives of many Civic Guardians across the community, covering it as thoroughly as possible. From there, they would focus on socialization and “soft” methods of promoting good behavior and subtle law enforcement. Their presence and social influence will be the main tool to preserve public safety. Sworn law enforcement officers have steep qualifications and are expected to also do emergency duties; Civic Guardians have the focus of ensuring that these subtler methods of public security are fulfilled by other staff who are not burdened by harsher responsibilities.

The role of Civic Guardian not only exists among full-time professionals but also in volunteer form. Professional Civic Guardians are full-time personnel who participate in the building of the "Giant Net" infrastructure throughout their regular workdays. The Volunteer Civic Guardians assist with this mission, but they hold other jobs in other fields. They assist the professionals in their tasks on weekends, after work hours, or in other miscellaneous ways at variable levels of availability. Volunteers expand the potential amount of personnel to ensure the enhancement of Public Safety. There is also the distinction between Internal and External Civic Guardians. Most Civic Guardians are External; they focus on ensuring the community is safe. Internal Civic Guardians are either Supervisors who manage Civic Guardians in an area or Advisors who ensure the policies of a given institution conform to the vision of Comprehensive Social Deterrence. Civic Guardians come in many various titles based on their exact role. Civic Guardian job titles include, but are not limited to: Public Safety Ambassador, Community Support Officer, Municipal Patrol Officer, and so forth.