Part I consists of theorizing regarding formalization and crime control. Part II summarizes presentations of empirical material on various examples of informal crime control. The countries represented are Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, China, Venezuela, Yugoslavia, the Federal Republic of Germany, Japan, and countries in West Africa. The informal crime control mechanisms explored for these countries are family, religion, politics, school, labor (work place), public security organization, citizens associations and the volunteer probation officer, conciliation, and therapeutic communities. Part III attempts an analysis that is both cross-cultural and internally consistent. The key concepts of formalized social control serve as pointers for assessing the extent to which certain mechanisms could be said to be formalized. 73 references. For individual chapters, see NCJ 119061-68.