Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2015. NCES 2016-079/NCJ 249758
Author: Zhang, Anlan
Date: 2016-05-00
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Crime,Violence,School Safety,National Surveys,Suspension,Expulsion,Delinquency,Residential Programs,Individual Characteristics,Institutional Characteristics,Death,Victims,Incidence,Injuries,Weapons,Teachers,Student Behavior,Educational Environment,Police,Public Schools,Discipline Problems,Juvenile Gangs,Substance Abuse,Verbal Communication,Bullying,Fear,Student Attitudes,School Security,Postsecondary Education,Elementary Secondary Education,Gender Differences,Age Differences,Racial Differences,Ethnic Groups

Our nation's schools should be safe havens for teaching and learning, free of crime and violence. Any instance of crime or violence at school not only affects the individuals involved, but also may disrupt the educational process and affect bystanders, the school itself, and the surrounding community (Brookmeyer, Fanti, and Henrich 2006; Goldstein, Young, and Boyd 2008). Establishing reliable indicators of the current state of school crime and safety across the nation and regularly updating and monitoring these indicators are important in ensuring the safety of our nation's students. This is the aim of &quot;Indicators of School Crime and Safety.&quot; This report is the eighteenth in a series of annual publications produced jointly by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Institute of Education Sciences (IES), in the U.S. Department of Education, and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in the U.S. Department of Justice. This report presents the most recent data available on school crime and student safety. The indicators in this report are based on information drawn from a variety of data sources, including national surveys of students, teachers, principals, and postsecondary institutions. Sources include results from the School-Associated Violent Deaths Study, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, the Department of Justice, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); the National Crime Victimization Survey and School Crime Supplement to that survey, sponsored by BJS and NCES, respectively; the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, sponsored by the CDC; the Schools and Staffing Survey, School Survey on Crime and Safety, Fast Response Survey System, EDFacts, and High School Longitudinal Study of 2009, all sponsored by NCES; the Supplementary Homicide Reports, sponsored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Campus Safety and Security Survey and Civil Rights Data Collection, both sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education; and the Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice. The most recent data collection for each indicator varied by survey, from 2009 to 2014. Each data source has an independent sample design, data collection method, and questionnaire design, or is the result of a universe data collection. Findings described in this report with comparative language (e.g., higher, lower, increase, and decrease) are statistically significant at the 0.05 level. This report covers topics such as victimization, teacher injury, bullying and cyber-bullying, school conditions, fights, weapons, availability and student use of drugs and alcohol, student perceptions of personal safety at school, and criminal incidents at postsecondary institutions. Indicators of crime and safety are compared across different population subgroups and over time. Data on crimes that occur away from school are offered as a point of comparison where available. Preliminary data show that there were 53 school associated violent deaths from July 1, 2012, through June 30, 2013. (Indicator 1). In 2014, among students ages 12-18, there were about 850,100 nonfatal victimizations at school, which included 363,700 theft victimizations and 486,400 violent victimizations (simple assault and serious violent victimizations.) (Indicator 2). During the 2013-14 school year, there were 1.3 million reported discipline incidents in the United States for reasons related to alcohol, drugs, violence, or weapons possession that resulted in a student being removed from the education setting for at least an entire school day. (Indicator 19). Of the 781 total hate crimes reported on college campuses in 2013, the most common type of hate crime reported by institutions was destruction, damage, and vandalism (364 incidents), followed by intimidation (295 incidents) and simple assault (89 incidents; Indicator 23). Additional information about methodology and the datasets analyzed in this report may be found in appendix A. A Glossary of terms is also included in appendix B. [For the previous report: &quot;Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2014. NCES 2015-072/NCJ 248036,&quot; see ED557756.]