Police and social work preventions of offending among at-risk youth in Shanghai

The effectiveness of police disciplining and social work counseling in preventing offending of at-risk youth has been unclear. For elucidating the prevention regarding theft and fighting, this study analyzes 1702 retrospective event history cases from 297 at-risk youths identified in the Chinese metropolis of Shanghai. Herein, the event history refers to theft, fighting, police disciplining, and social work counseling happening in the youth's age of 11 years through 18 years. The analysis reveals that the interventions of police disciplining and social work counseling, both in the previous year, demonstrated significant negative effects on fighting and theft respectively. Furthermore, combination of the two interventions generated a significant negative interaction effect on theft. These findings exemplify elasticity theory by showing that the hard form of police disciplining and the soft form of social work counseling are complementary in preventing offending. The findings imply the worth of promoting the interventions selectively to prevent hard and soft offending such as fighting and stealing respectively.