 Just as American police films, American crime thrillers, and American vigilante films of the time focused on the crime waves and urban decline in the United States of the 1960s and 1970s, "poliziotteschi" were set in the context of, or directly addressed, the sociopolitical tumult and violence of Italy's "anni di piombo", or the "Years of Lead," a period of widespread social unrest, political upheaval, labor unrest, rising crime, political violence, and political terrorism from the 1960s to 1980s.During this period, paramilitary and militant political terrorist groups, both on the far left (e.g.the Red Brigades) and far right (e.g.