In this study, family therapists were teamed with youth bureau officers to make counseling services immediately available and easily accessible to families with children in repeated conflict with the law. The service component of the program ran for 18 months, and subjects were followed for a 2-year period. The 305 subjects were assigned randomly to experimental and control conditions. The experimental group received the team approach, and the control group received randomly to experimental and control conditions. The experimental group received the team approach, and the control group received the traditional police investigation. Data on services provided either to the juvenile offender or to a family member were obtained from the files of all community agencies that provide service. Service providers whose information was used in data analysis included the school system, the children's aid societies, health services and psychiatric units, and private family agencies and group homes. Data analysis indicated that children who received services had a higher rate of recidivism. Children receiving ''intensive' services had higher recidivism rates than those receiving' 'brief' services. The severity of subsequently committed offenses was unrelated to the amount of treatment. It is concluded that the service provided by agencies in the community neither reduced the rate of recidivism nor the tendency to commit increasingly serious offenses in this sample of delinquent children. Findings thus support an argument for strategic nonintervention. Five reference footnotes and 17 tables are included. (Author abstract modified)