Universal School-Based Social-Emotional Learning and Early Adolescent Police Contact

This research explored the association between universal primary school Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) and early adolescent police contact for criminal incidents. For 12,564 students in New South Wales, Australia, data from school leaders regarding SEL programs delivered at 493 primary schools (when students were in Year 6) was linked with police contact records (during Years 7 and 8). Multi-level regressions revealed no significant association between SEL and police contact. Early childhood risk for police contact (according to child and family characteristics) did not consistently moderate the effect of SEL. However, a significant three-way interaction indicated that boys with above median early childhood risk had marginally higher contact if their school delivered SEL programs than if it did not. At-risk girls demonstrated the opposite direction of effect. Averting young people’s involvement with the criminal justice system may require multi-tiered systems of support, which supplement universal SEL with targeted and/or intensive interventions for at-risk students.