The discussion links social disorganization and the concept of social capital to emphasize the embeddedness of families and children in the social context of local communities, particularly informal social control and acquaintanceship networks. This approach helps explain how families' connections with institutions, the supervision of youth, intergenerational networks, mutual social support, consensus on parenting, and other factors both directly and indirectly influence the care of children and ultimately the rates of juvenile delinquency and crime. It also explains why variations in crime among urban black neighborhoods result from variations in informal social organization, which result in turn from variations in concentrations of poverty, family disruption, and residential mobility. This model suggests that the profound changes in the structure of urban minority communities in the 1970s may be crucial in understanding recent increases in violence. 118 references