One of 52 theoretical papers on school crime and its relation to poverty, this chapter presents an institutional product theory of school crime, along with related evidence and a preliminary test of the theory. Two theoretical traditions, Albert Cohen's "delinquent subculture" theory and the social psychological "cognitive balance" theory, can predict a causal chain linking school failure to various forms of deviant behavior via "affect toward school" and "deviant subgroup involvement." A study of male students in two central New York State high schools supports the causal chain with the exception that "affect toward school" does not appear to intervene between "school failure" and the subsequent variables in the causal chain. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (Author/MLF)