Executive Summary: Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 1998 Revised April 20, 1999 U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Research and Improvement National Center for Education Statistics U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics October 1998 Phillip Kaufman Xianglei Chen Susan P. Choy MPR Associates, Inc. Kathryn A. Chandler Christopher D. Chapman National Center for Education Statistics Michael R. Rand Cheryl Ringel Bureau of Justice Statistics U.S. Department of Education Richard W. Riley, Secretary Office of Educational Research and Improvement C. Kent McGuire, Assistant Secretary National Center for Education Statistics Pascal D. Forgione, Jr., Commissioner The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the primary federal entity for collecting, analyzing, and reporting data related to education in the United States and other nations. It fulfills a congressional mandate to collect, collate, analyze, and report full and complete statistics on the condition of education in the United States; conduct and publish reports and specialized analyses of the meaning and significance of such statistics; assist state and local education agencies in improving their statistical systems; and report on education activities in foreign countries. This publication can be downloaded from the World Wide Web at http://nces.ed.gov Single hard copies can be ordered through ED Pubs at 1-877-4EDPUBS (NCES 98-251) (TTY/TDD 1-877-576-7734), Contact at NCES: Kathryn Chandler (202) 2191767 (email) kathryn_chandler@ed.gov * U.S. Department of Justice Janet Reno, Attorney General Office of Justice Programs Laurie O. Robinson Assistant Attorney General Bureau of Justice Statistics Jan M. Chaiken, Director The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) is the primary federal entity for collecting, analyzing, publishing, and disseminating statistical information about crime, its perpetrators and victims, and the operation of the justice system at all levels of government. These data are critical to federal, state, and local policymakers in combating crime and ensuring that justice is both efficient and evenhanded. This publication can be downloaded from the World Wide Web at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/iscs98.htm Single hard copies can be ordered through Bureau of Justice Statistics Clearinghouse at 1-800-732-3277 (NCJ 172215). Contact at BJS: Michael Rand (202) 616-3494 (email) randm@ojp.usdoj.gov October 1998 Suggested Citation Kaufman, P., Chen, X., Choy, S. P., Chandler, K. A., Chapman, C. D., Rand, M. R. and Ringel, C. Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 1998. U.S. Departments of Education and Justice. NCES 98-251/NCJ 172215. Washington, D.C.: 1998. * Foreword The string of tragic violent incidents that occurred in school year 1997-1998 has refocused the American public's attention on school crime and safety. When the first events occurred, it became clear that there was no single source of information about crime and violence in the nation's schools, and President Clinton called on the Departments of Justice and Education to produce an annual report card on school violence. The Departments responded to that request by producing the Annual Report on School Safety: 1998 to inform educators, parents and students about the current nature of crime in schools and about programs schools and school systems have instituted to work towards making schools safer. At the same time, the statistical agencies of the two departments identified a broader range of indicators on school crime and safety to be reported annually. This report, Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 1998, is a joint effort by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Center for Education Statistics. It is meant to provide detailed statistical information supporting the Annual Report. This series will provide the President, Congress, and the public with an analysis of the latest and best national data on school crime and safety in the United States. In addition to providing this new report on school safety and crime, the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Center for Education Statistics have initiated data collection efforts that will provide even more timely and accurate statistics on this issue in years to come. These efforts will include a more regularly conducted School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey scheduled now for 1999 and every two years thereafter, and a new biennial school-based survey starting in 2000 that will collect data on crime and discipline problems in our nation's schools. We hope that this and subsequent reports will help inform the President, Congress, and the public on our nation's progress in providing our children with safe places to live and learn. Pascal D. Forgione, Jr., Ph.D. Commissioner of Education Statistics Jan M. Chaiken, Ph.D. Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics * Acknowledgments The authors wish to thank the heads of their respective agencies, Pat Forgione of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and Jan Chaiken of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), for supporting this report. We also wish to thank members of the Department of Education/ Department of Justice School Safety Report Working Group for guidance on content and constructive criticism on early drafts of the report. From BJS, we wish to thank Patsy Klaus, Craig Perkins, and Cathy Maston of Victimization Statistics Branch for their work in preparing and verifying data from the NCVS. From NCES, we wish to thank Mary Frase, Dan Kasprzyk, Edie McArthur, and Marilyn McMillen, who served as reviewers. They each provided input that substantially improved the publication. Outside of NCES and BJS, school crime experts who reviewed the report were Bruce Taylor of the General Accounting Office, Eileen Poe-Yamagata of the National Center for Juvenile Justice in Pittsburgh, and Joanne Wiggins of the Planning and Evaluation Service of the U.S. Department of Education. Their advice was gratefully accepted. We particularly appreciated their willingness to review the report under very strict time constraints. Without the assistance of the following staff at MPR Associates this report could not have been produced: Barbara Kridl (overall production and proofreading), Andrea Livingston (editing), Leslie Retallick (figure design and text layout), Francesca Tussing (table layout), and Karyn Madden (proofreading). They provided invaluable editorial, graphic, and production assistance. Finally, the authors would like to thank Amanda Miller of the Education Statistics Services Institute and Marilyn Marbrook, Chief of Publication and Electronic Dissemination at BJS, assisted by Yvonne Boston and Jayne Robinson, for their assistance in preparing this document for publication and dissemination. Highlights Schools should be safe and secure places for all students, teachers, and staff members. Without a safe learning environment, teachers cannot teach and students cannot learn. Recent efforts by schools, local authorities, and the state and federal governments have prompted the nation to focus on improving the safety of American schools. It is the hope that all children will be able to go to and from school and be at school without fearing for their safety or the safety of their friends and teachers. Judging progress toward providing safer schools requires establishing good indicators on the current state of school crime and safety and periodically monitoring and updating these indicators. This report, the first in a series of annual reports on school crime and safety from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Center for Education Statistics, presents the latest available data on school crime and student safety. The report provides a profile of school crime and safety in the United States and describes the characteristics of the victims of these crimes. It is organized as a series of indicators, with each indicator presenting data on different aspects of school crime and safety. There are five sections to the report: Nonfatal Student Victimization-- Student Reports; Violence and Crime at School-- Public School Principal/Disciplinarian Reports; Violent Deaths at School; Nonfatal Teacher Victimization at School--Teacher Reports; and School Environment. Each section contains a set of indicators that, taken as a whole, describe a distinct aspect of school crime and safety. The indicators rely on data collected by a variety of federal departments and agencies including the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Center for Education Statistics, the National Center for Health Statistics, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Because the report relies on so many different data sets, the age groups and the time periods analyzed can vary from indicator to indicator. Readers should keep this in mind as they compare data from different indicators. Furthermore, while every effort has been made to keep key definitions consistent across indicators, different surveys sometimes use different definitions, such as those for specific crimes and "at school." (Readers should consult the glossary of terms in appendix C for the specific definitions used in each survey.) Therefore caution should be used in making comparisons between results from different data sets. Descriptions of these data sets are located in appendix B of this report. Some of the key findings from the various sections of this report are as follows. (All comparisons reported in this report were statistically significant at the 0.05 level. See appendix B for details on the methods used here.) Nonfatal Student Victimization -- Student Reports In 1996, students ages 12 through 18 were victims of about 225,000 incidents of nonfatal serious violent crime at school and about 671,000 incidents away from school. (This sentence revised April 20, 1999) These numbers indicate that when students were away from school they were more likely to be victims of nonfatal serious violent crime including rape, sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault -- than when they were at school (Indicator 1). * The percentages of 12th graders who have been injured (with or without a weapon) at school have not changed notably over the past 20 years, although the percentages who have been threatened with injury (with a weapon or without a weapon) show a very slight overall upward trend (Indicator 3). * In 1996, 5 percent of all 12th graders reported that they had been injured with a weapon such as a knife, gun, or club during the past 12 months while they were at school that is, inside or outside the school building or on a school bus and 12 percent reported that they had been injured on purpose without a weapon while at school (Indicator 3). * Students were differentially affected by crime according to where they lived. In 1996, 12- through 18-year-old students living in urban areas were more vulnerable to serious violent crime than were students in suburban and rural areas both at and away from school. However, student vulnerability to theft in 1996 was similar in urban, suburban, and rural areas both at and away from school (Indicator 1). Violence and Crime at School--Public School Principal/Disciplinarian Reports In 1996-97, 10 percent of all public schools reported at least one serious violent crime to the police or a law enforcement representative. Principals'reports of serious violent crimes included murder, rape or other type of sexual battery, suicide, physical attack or fight with a weapon, or robbery. Another 47 percent of public schools reported a less serious violent or nonviolent crime (but not a serious violent one). Crimes in this category include physical attack or fight without a weapon, theft/larceny, and vandalism. The remaining 43 percent of public schools did not report any of these crimes to the police (Indicator 6). * Elementary schools were much less likely than either middle or high schools to report any type of crime in 1996-97. They were much more likely to report vandalism (31 percent) than any of the other crimes (19 percent or less) (Indicator 7). * At the middle and high school levels, physical attack or fight without a weapon was generally the most commonly reported crime in 1996-97 (9 and 8 per 1,000 students, respectively). Theft or larceny was more common at the high school than the middle school level (6 versus 4 per 1,000 students) (Indicator 7). Violent Deaths at School Seventy-six students were murdered or committed suicide at school during the combined 1992-93 and 1993-94 school years (the latest period for which data are available). Nonstudent violent deaths also occurred at school. During this period, there were 105 violent deaths at school of which 29 involved nonstudents (Indicator 8). * Most murders and suicides among young people occurred while they were away from school. In the combined 1992 and 1993 calendar years, 7,357 young people ages 5 through 19 were murdered, and 4,366 committed suicide in all locations (Indicator 8). * Students in urban schools had a higher level of risk of violent death at school than their peers in suburban or rural schools. The estimated rate of school-associated violent death for students in urban schools was nine times greater than the rate for students in rural schools and two times greater than that for students in suburban schools during the combined 1992-93 and 1993-94 school years (Indicator 8). Nonfatal Teacher Victimization at School--Teacher Reports Over the 5-year period from 1992 to 1996, teachers were victims of 1,581,000 nonfatal crimes at school, including 962,000 thefts and 619,000 violent crimes (rape or sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated and simple assault) (Indicator 9). This translates into about 316,000 nonfatal crimes per year over this time period. * In the period from 1992 to 1996, middle and junior high school teachers were more likely to be victims of violent crime (most of which were simple assaults) than senior high school teachers, who in turn were more likely to be victims of violent crime than elementary school teachers (Indicator 9). * In the 1993-94 school year, 12 percent of all elementary and secondary school teachers were threatened with injury by a student, and 4 percent were physically attacked by a student. This represented about 341,000 teachers who were victims of threats of injury by students and 120,000 teachers who were victims of attacks by students that year (Indicator 10). School Environment Between 1989 and 1995, there were increases in the percentages of students feeling unsafe while they were at school and while they were going to and from school. In 1989, 6 percent of students ages 12 through 19 sometimes or most of the time feared they were going to be attacked or harmed at school. By 1995, this percentage had risen to 9 percent. During the same period, the percentage of students fearing they would be attacked while traveling to and from school rose from 4 percent to 7 percent (Indicator 12). * Between 1989 and 1995, the percentage of students ages 12 through 19 who avoided one or more places at school for fear of their own safety increased, from 5 percent to 9 percent. In 1995, this percentage represented 2.1 million students (Indicator 13). * Between 1989 and 1995, the percentage of students who reported that street gangs were present at their schools increased. In 1989, 15 percent of students reported gangs being present in their schools. By 1995, this percentage had risen to 28 percent (Indicator 14). * There was a decline between 1993 and 1996 in the percentage of male high school seniors who reported carrying a weapon to school at least 1 day within the 4 weeks before the survey the percentage fell from 14 percent in 1993 to 9 percent in 1996. However, there was little change in the percentage of female students who reported doing so (from 2 to 3 percent) (Indicator 11). * Although 12th graders were less likely to use alcohol at school than at home or at parties, in 1996 about 8 percent of 12th graders had consumed alcohol at school in the past 12 months (Indicator 16). * The percentage of 12th graders who had taken various illegal drugs at school in the previous 12 months declined between 1976 and 1992. However, since 1992, use of marijuana and stimulants at school has increased (Indicator 17). * Contents (full report) Foreword iii Highlights v Acknowledgments ix List of tables xiii List of figures xix Nonfatal Student Victimization Student Reports 1 1. Victimization of students at school and away from school 2 2. Prevalence of students' being victimized at school 6 3. Prevalence of 12th graders' being injured or threatened with injury at school 8 4. Prevalence of students' being bullied at school 10 5. Prevalence of 12th graders' having property stolen or damaged at school 11 Violence and Crime at School Public School- Principal/Disciplinarian Reports 13 6. Crimes reported to the police 14 7. Specific crimes reported to the police 16 Violent Deaths at School 19 8. Violent deaths at school and away from school 20 Nonfatal Teacher Victimization at School- Teacher Reports 23 9. Nonfatal teacher victimization at school 24 10. Prevalence of teachers being threatened with injury or attacked by students 26 School Environment 27 11. Prevalence of students carrying weapons to school 28 12. Students' perceptions of personal safety at school and when traveling to and from school 30 13. Students' reports of avoiding places at school 32 14. Students' reports of gangs at school 34 15. Public school principals' reports of discipline problems at school 36 16. Prevalence of 12th graders using alcohol at school and away from school 38 17. Prevalence of 12th graders using other drugs at school and away from school 40 Tables Supplemental Tables 43 Standard Error Tables 83 Appendixes A. School Practices and Policies Related to Safety and Discipline 121 B. Technical Notes 135 C. Glossary of Terms 155 * Order form Yes! Send me 1 copy of "Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 1998" (161 pages), NCJ 172215 FAX your order to 410-792-4358, or fold, tape, and mail with first-class stamp to-- Bureau of Justice Statistics Clearinghouse P.O. Box 179, Dept. BJS Annapolis Junction MD 20701-0179. Name___________________________________ Address_________________________________ City, State, ZIP__________________________ Daytime phone number: (______)____________ (end of file)