This study examines the responses of U. S. governments to crime between 1948 and 1978, from the immediate post-war period to the end of the first decade of federal intervention and funding in the fight against crime. The focus of the study is city governments, and their ‘front line agencies – police, courts, prisons – and only to a lesser extent on state and federal legislatures. Examination of city budgets, staff rosters, arrest figures, and legislative enactments for the period give the impression that cities and states were a beehive of focused activity, but the study concludes that in fact cities responded less effectively than they thought they had, hampered not by a lack of funds, but by ineffective technology, governmental fragmentation, and inadequate understanding of the problems or solutions. The nature of government’s failure to cope with crime is discussed, and trends identified. Overall, city responses are characterized as providing considerable motion, but little progress. The major concern was not that governments did nothing about crime, but that they did many little things, while pretending to pursue a grand strategy.