One of 52 theoretical papers on school crime and its relation to poverty, this chapter, by utilizing ethnographic data, develops an understanding of the interrelationships among administrative styles, deterrence, commitment, and disruption. The effect of change in administrative styles on the character of order and disruption in a desegregated southern high school is examined. The concern of this paper is primarily with control systems and their effects, and not with the incidence of misbehavior. The data were drawn from an ongoing ethnographic study geared to investigate the process of interracial schooling. Additional data are presented from an ethnography of another high school in a different southern city to facilitate the formulation of conclusions. The paper concludes that a highly representative governance system fosters commitment in the vast majority of school participants. The participants have a major role in making and revising the rules, and, thus, when caught violating them, they are hard pressed to question the legitimacy of those rules. (Author/MLF)