Samenvatting

Young people’s delinquent behavior remains a social problem of concern to parents, local residents, teachers, police officers and administrators. With respect to effective interventions, the dominant focus is on ‘what works’. Relatively little is known about ‘who works’. In this study, based on a survey of 679 vmbo-pupils, it was investigated to what extent receiving ‘sternness with love’ from a professional may contribute to mitigating delinquency. For this research, unique graphically supported measuring instruments were developed that enable participants of the target group – including those who suffer from mild intellectual disabilities – to independently fill out the questionnaire. The results based on regression analyses suggest that there is no support for the supposed contribution of the interaction between sternness and love or of the three-way interaction between delinquent friends, sternness and love in explaining the variance of delinquent behavior. The results further show that having delinquent friends is related to participants’ delinquency. The results of these analyses also suggest that the relevant professional’s approach with ‘sternness’ or with ‘love’ moderates the relationship between delinquent friends and committing theft.