The study found that although perceived negative neighborhood processes (social disorder and a lack of informal social cohesion) might not have a clear, directly observable role in mothers' risk for perpetrating physical child abuse and no direct role in the commission of child neglect, these perceptions had a discernable indirect role in predicting the risk for physical child abuse and neglect through parenting stress and personal control pathways. Parenting stress exerted the clearest direct role on the risk for both physical abuse and neglect. This predictor model did not differ significantly across ethnic groups. These findings suggest the importance of targeting parents' sense of control and stress in relation to their immediate social environment in reducing the risk for perpetrating physical child abuse and neglect. In-home and phone interviews were conducted with a national birth cohort of 3,356 mothers across 20 U.S. cities when the index child was 3 years old. Mothers' perceptions of neighborhood social processes, parenting stress, and personal control were examined as predictors. Three subscales of the Parent-To-Child Conflict Tactics Scale were used as proxies of the risk for physical child abuse and neglect. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test direct and indirect pathways from perceived neighborhood processes to proxy measures of physical child abuse and neglect. Multiple group SEM was conducted to test for differences across major ethnic groups: African-American, Hispanic, and White. 3 tables, 2 figures, and 50 references