Data collected in San Francisco and Oakland, California, and in Richmond, Virginia, between 1981 and 1984 indicated the type and posture of grassroots organizations differed significantly. Positions adopted by anticrime activists were largely decided by their perspectives on the legitimacy of government authority and their sense of efficacy. These perspectives led activists to fall into four basic categories: negotiational, adversarial, delegational, and alienated. Negotiational groups worked toward broadening community involvement and developing self-governance, adversarial groups believed government was responsible for community problems, and delegational groups sought to build a quasiformal relationship with their city governments. Groups with an alienated orientation were overwhelmed by the extent to which crime was a problem in their communities but felt potential solutions offered by government were as bad as or worse than the actual crime problem. 50 references, 13 notes, and 2 figures