The first section discusses the legal basic elements of prevention and intervention. Prevention represents a higher level of societal planning than a purely reactive intervention in a given social problem. Prevention also promotes public involvement in the living conditions of the citizen and challenges the law to develop independent parameters to evaluate the changes this creates in the basic principles of the relationship between citizen and State. The second, empirical section discusses specific adolescent crime prevention and intervention programs operating in West Germany and internationally. The final section focuses on a broad range of perspectives on the ethical and moral questions that arise from the intrusions into the personal integrity of a citizen that are necessitated by intervention measures, the collection of psychological and personal data, and random selection in treatment research. Chapter references