One of 52 theoretical papers on school crime and its relation to poverty, this chapter, based on the findings of an indepth study of the social organization of the American high school, provides a new, school-specific way of examining the problem of school crime and violence. The study, which made use of field methodology, addressed two basic questions: "What is the code of rules which makes the high school a social system?" and "How do people learn to play this game?" Data collected enabled researchers to describe four major structural domains of socialization transactions (the teaching-learning structure, the authority-power structure, the peer-group structure, the cross-group structures) and three major processes of social action by which the four structures are operationalized in the social organization (sorting, territoriality, rule making, and rule breaking). It is suggested that this model of the social organization of the American high school, in isolating what is school-specific about crime and violence in schools, may enable educators to develop a means of effectively dealing with the problem. (Author/MLF)