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Crime has been identified as a threat to the legitimacy of political and legal institutions, and even major obstacle to democratic development itself. This paper examines the relationship between crime and trust in political and legal institutions in the emerging democracies around the world. Low levels of institutional trust are thought to especially pose threats to emerging democracies. Yet even if one is the victim of a crime, one's level of institutional trust might not decline if one perceives that the legal institutions have effectively addressed the event. Thus, we explore how government effectiveness and perceptions of government in the area of crime mediates the relationship between experiences with crime and attitudes toward political and legal institutions. We use survey data from the Afrobarometer, Latinbaromter, and the Asian Barometer to examine how trust in political and legal institutions varies across time and across different countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]