This essay is about the role of crime in the demise of marriage and the loss of another generation of husbands in many American communities. In other words, it’s about the loss of countless spouses who love and support their wives — the mothers of theirchildren. It’s also, therefore, about the loss of countless fathers who actually live with their children, under the same roof, nurturing and protecting them as they grow up. So it’s an essay about losses borne by young people, too. And because of these subtractions, this is a paper about American neighborhoods that will remain unavoidably impoverished and dangerous. Although it sounds like dust-jacket hyperbole, we are in the midst of adreadful crisis — often racially saturated — that afflicts the Twin Cities as much as most places in the nation, and by some measures, more. (Author abstract)