Against the backdrop of a long history of antagonism between African Americans and law-enforcement agencies, scholars and policymakers have recently identified a "crisis of legitimacy" in the relationships of black Americans to the courts, police, and other components of the criminal justice system. African Americans have less faith than their white counterparts that police are there to serve them and protect person and property. This paper examines the mechanisms that African Americans have developed for maintaining social order and ensuring a minimal level of personal and public safety in the absence of an effective and responsive justice apparatus. It documents how a poor, predominantly black urban community developed such "indigenous" resources for resolving disputes and attending to delinquent and criminal behavior. This sphere of justice is contrasted with "state-sanctioned" judicial procedures, such as community policing or conventional prosecution via the courts. This development of is replaced within a global context, both pointing to the ways in which the relationship between indigenous forms of social order maintenance and state sanctioned law-enforcement practices are shaped by global political and economic shifts as well as noting the rise in such developments across the globe.