One of 52 theoretical papers on school crime and its relation to poverty, this chapter reports that there is a growing trend in this country to blame youth crime on parental overpermissiveness. Available data fail to support this and show that all types of crime, including school crime, develop within families and school systems emphasizing aversive and athoritarian discipline techniques. Also, racism and personal injustice are more common in an authoritarian atmosphere. Of all types of aversive behavior control, corporal punishment appears most apt to induce aggression. A theory relating delinquent agression to the severity of parental discipline is sketched out, and it is suggested that a national effort be made to discourage the use of corporal punishment as a socially acceptable child-rearing technique. Since corporal punishment tends to produce both fear and anger, its continued use in the school can only be counterproductive to the learning process. A joint effort should be made to train teachers in nonaversive but effective techniques of pupil control. In addition, individual teachers need the support of well-trained guidance personnel who are willing to enter homes and work with the behavioral problems at their source. (Author/MLF)