Shared_pointers are thread-safe from a creation and deletion aspect. Futhermore, you can use weak_ptrs to reference a shared_ptr and use that where you suspect a pointer might be deleted to a resource that is still required. Furthermore, the trusty old keyword const can make the pointer immutable thereby mitigating the problem. (And don't say what about const_cast.. because that's undefined behavior masquerading as acceptable because it rarely causes side-effects.