Social control issues such as street crime and drug use have received an extraordinary degree of political attention in the United States since 1964. This article uses OLS regression techniques and other methods to identify which factors are associated with subsequent shifts in levels of public concern about crime and drugs. The results indicate that state claimsmaking activities and, to some extent, media initiative on these issues, are associated with public concern about street crime and drug use. The study provides support for constructionist accounts of the politicization of crime and drugs by demonstrating that it is the definitional activities of the state and the media, rather than the reported incidence of crime or drug use and abuse, that has shaped public concern regarding those issues. The study describes the objectivist and constructionist models to specify different relationships between reported rates of crime/drug use, state and media initiative, and public concern about crime and drugs. Notes, figures, tables, references