If the girls were treated as roughly as you claim, then that's going overboard. Otherwise, I love that they may have been "scared straight." I never shoplifted as a teenager: the fear of getting caught was enough to keep me in line (and the ass beating I would have gotten at home helped).

I once caught two teenage girls smashing glass bottles on my street one night. I ran out, got one in a headlock, my neighbor Romeo (real name!) grabbed the other and we scared the crap out of them. They were crying and scared you-know-what-less. We never saw them on our street again.

I got caught doing something very dangerous (long story) when I was four. My parents' neighbor, Tom Long (Hi, Tom!) caught me (and the other kids) and the others got away, but he grabbed my by my arm and spanked my ass the whole way home to my parents' house. My mother thanked him. I ended up with pnemonia and spent a week in the hospital.

Ideally, kids shouldn't be spanked or treated rough physically. But sometimes, a kid just needs a whap on the ass.