My grandmother was expert at this. She sometimes didn't even have to say anything, just give this particular look which would stop you from doing whatever you were doing immediately.

She worked with alcoholics and drug addicts as well as general mental health patients and despite being under 5ft, she could put the fear of God into men who really could have easily taken her out.

Family friend of ours was a retired rural police officer. Being based in such a small place he knew everybody on sight and pretty much their family tree/relations to everybody else. He said much the same as you- particularly if it was a boy or younger man, a threat to come round to their house to speak to their mother worked better than any threat of arrest. In a lot of cases, word quickly got to the arrested person's mother and she'd come storming down the street with a rolling pin/spoon/broom in hand and start giving their son hell.

He actually jokingly said that they should have given all the village mothers police uniforms. The crime rate would be zero because everyone would be petrified of getting the spoon.

I'm not in Japan but another Asian country and here the convenience stores are always busy. Among other things they allow you to purchase instant noodles or things like hotdogs or fried chicken and then there is a seating area to eat them in. They even provide chopsticks and hot water for the noodles. Result is that late at night or at lunch times they're crammed with people.

Ages ago there was a story about a man going to a Japanese Starbucks. He ordered a drink, and the general manager came over to apologize personally that it didn't exactly match the picture he'd seen because they had run out of the sauce. He genuinely got baffled by this as he probably wouldn't have known.