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In a new study, economist Katharina Drescher from the University of Passau shows that school social work not only has positive educational effects, but also reduces youth crime.
School shootings in the USA are often followed by knee-jerk debates about gun laws – often with the consequence that even more guns end up in circulation.
In 2009, the school shooting in Winnenden shocked the whole of Germany. The German state of Baden-Württemberg responded by significantly expanding preventive social work. It more than doubled the number of specialists in this field in schools. Katharina Drescher, an economist at the Chair of Public Economics at the University of Passau, has investigated how this measure affects youth crime and education.
Using a sample school with 1,000 students, she calculates the effects that an additional school social worker would have:
• Significant reduction in youth crime: Youth crime would fall by an average of 17 per cent per year. This effect does not depend on the gender or migration background of the young people and is particularly strong in socially disadvantaged regions.
• Significant reduction in violent crime: The researcher finds an even greater effect in the case of serious violent crimes. Here, an additional school social worker would reduce cases by around 25 per cent, also within families.
• More awareness of sexualised violence: School social work uncovers victims of sexual offenses, and reporting rates rise by 24 per cent because those affected are more likely to seek help.
• Better educational opportunities: An additional staff member reduces the likelihood of repeating a year by around 10 per cent.
The concept of school social work comprises social education services at school. The specialists act as confidants, strengthen social skills, provide crisis support and prevent educational disadvantage.
Based on the actual expansion in Baden-Württemberg, Drescher concludes that the additional school social workers who were hired after the Winnenden shooting, particularly at secondary schools and grammar schools, have reduced youth crime by an average of 2 to 3 per cent per year.
Methodology and approach
Drescher analyses administrative data on crime, education and social work from Baden-Württemberg from 2006 to 2018. In her study, she evaluates around 800,000 crimes committed by under-19s – from theft to serious violence – as well as regional statistics on school performance.
‘In the study, I make use of the regional differences in the implementation of school social work support following the shooting rampage in Winnenden,’ explains Drescher. The method is similar to a natural experiment: because the expansion varied from region to region, it was possible to isolate the causal effects of school social work; fundamental differences between regions and general trends can be accounted for using this approach.
School social work pays off
The economist also conducts a cost-benefit analysis. According to this, an additional specialist per 1,000 students costs around 50,000 euros per year. But the benefits outweigh the costs: by reducing crime and improving educational attainment, this specialist saves society 110,000 euros per year. And this figure is more likely to be a lower limit of the actual positive effects: it does not take into account possible long-term effects such as better career opportunities or fewer crimes in adulthood.
‘School social work is more than just crisis intervention,’ emphasises Drescher. ‘It has been proven to improve young people's future prospects – and at the same time relieve the burden on society and public budgets.’
About the author
Katharina Drescher is a doctoral candidate at the Chair of Public Economics under the supervision of Professor Stefan Bauernschuster. She conducts research on social policy measures and their effects. Her study is one of the first to demonstrate the quantitative impact of school social work. Until now, educational research has focused on teachers.
She has already presented her findings at several academic conferences. In 2024, she was awarded the Young Economist Award by the Austrian National Economic Society for this work.
The study ‘Does School Social Work Work? The Impact of School Social Workers on Youth Crime and Education’ was recently published as a discussion paper in the Bavarian Graduate Programme in Economics. This is a publication that has not yet undergone a peer review process. Researchers use discussion papers to make their work available to a specialist audience before submitting it to refereed journals.
This text was machine-translated from German.
Katharina Drescher
Chair of Public Economics
University of Passau
Email: Katharina.Drescher@uni-passau.de
https://www.bgpe.de/files/2026/01/DP246_final-1.pdf ‘Does School Social Work Work? The Impact of School Social Workers on Youth Crime and Education’
Katharina Drescher is a research assistant at the Chair of Public Economics.
Source: University of Passau
Copyright: University of Passau
Criteria of this press release:
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Katharina Drescher is a research assistant at the Chair of Public Economics.
Source: University of Passau
Copyright: University of Passau
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