How does criminal governance shape citizens' claim-making on the state for public goods? Focusing on water in contexts of urban scarcity, this study argues that distinct forms of criminal governance reshape social capital, altering collective efficacy and the information that flows through community networks. These dimensions of social capital shape the social embeddedness of political brokers, structuring whether brokerage is organizational or transactional and whether claim-making is collective or individual, brokered or direct. A comparative analysis across three neighborhoods in Mexico City's eastern periphery shows how monopolistic criminal rule sustained social capital and enabled organizational brokerage and collective claim-making. Fragmented rule eroded social capital, producing transactional party brokerage and confining residents to individualized strategies. Segmented rule sustained social capital within bounded territories, yielding spatially segmented claim-making. By shaping the political strategies available to citizens, criminal governance reshapes everyday distributive politics, with implications for citizenship and the quality of democracy.