Although research reported in this book was conducted in Canada, this work was undertaken against a backdrop of theories of crime developed in Europe and the United States, and of research on the homeless in developing countries of Central and South America as well as in North America and Western Europe. This chapter links the pieces of this international story together and addresses theoretical and research issues associated with the study of youth and crime. One of the most salient of these issues is the range of theoretical orientations we use in studying street youth. Some of these perspectives – for example, strain and control theory – usually are seen as incompatible.

We propose that strain, control, and other prominent theories can be bridged within a social capital theory of crime. Our perspective contributes to a growing body of work that suggests advantages of integrating theories of crime (Johnson, 1979; Elliott et al., 1985; Messner et al., 1989), but our approach is distinct in its use of an overarching concept to unite these diverse explanations. To set the context for our theoretical synthesis, we first place the study of street youth within a highly condensed history of American criminology. This history is driven in significant part by changes in the American and more recently the global economy – a force that also contributes to the problems of street youth in developed and developing countries. It is against this backdrop that social capital theory emerges as a powerful framework that synthesizes attention to socially structured background, developmental, and foreground experiences of street youth.