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In March, NCES released the report Violence and Discipline Problems in U.S. Public Schools: 1996-97. The second report, Students' Reports of School Crime: 1989 and 1995, a publication produced jointly by the Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics, was released in April. This paper describes both publications, providing comparisons between the surveys on which the two publications are based and discussions of the findings. The two reports, with three more to follow in the next months, serve as precursors to a national report President Clinton has requested on the overall state of school safety.
There are many different ways information about school safety, crime, and violence might be collected. Respondents can be teachers, principals, law enforcement agencies, and students. Information can be collected about the overall perception of the safety of the school, or about incidents of specific types of crimes, or about specific victimization of individuals. Each of these data collection methods has its strengths and weaknesses. These two reports are based on surveys that use different methods of collection, different respondents and different measures; therefore, the results are not directly comparable across the two reports. (See the technical note at the end of this document that summarizes the methodologies of the two surveys on which the reports are based.)
Background
The report released in March, Violence and Discipline Problems in U.S. Public Schools: 1996-97, used data collected in a Fast Response Survey System (FRSS) survey that was conducted in the spring of 1997. The survey collected information from a nationally representative sample of 1,234 principals and/or school disciplinarians for the 1996-97 school year. The survey questionnaire that was used to collect data for this report asked questions about the incidence of violence "at the school," both during and after school hours. "At the school" included in school buildings, on school grounds, on school buses, as well as at places where school-sponsored events or activities are held that are not officially on school grounds. The incidents to be reported were those that had been reported to police or other law enforcement representatives.
The report released in April, Students' Reports of School Crime: 1989 and 1995, used the School Crime Supplement (SCS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to provide a picture of the types and frequency of violence students encountered at school in 1989 and 1995. In both years the survey used nationally representative samples of approximately 10,000 students (ages 12 to 19) interviewed in their households. The students were asked in January through June about crimes occurring in the school building, on school grounds or, on a school bus, during the six months preceding the interview. Students had to have attended school at some point during that time.
Differences between the two reports
The report, Violence and Discipline Problems in U.S. Public Schools: 1996-97, provides a school perspective. It contains data that allow us, for the first-time ever, to produce national school-level estimates about the incidence of various types of crime in public schools. The report also provides information about what public schools are doing about crime and violence and gives a picture of the extent of problems at the school level. The report will serve as a baseline for future measures at the school-level of the incidence of violence and discipline problems. The survey asked respondents to tell about incidents that had been reported to the police or law enforcement representatives. This common frame of reference was used so that the data from schools would be comparable. The total number of crimes that occur at school is likely to be higher than indicated in this report for several reasons. Such reasons include: Principals were only asked about certain types of incidents, principals may not have been aware of all incidents of these types, and principals may not have judged some of the incidents sufficiently serious to report them to law enforcement representatives. The report provides information about numbers of incidents, but not about the number of individuals involved in those incidents, either as perpetrators or victims. (Such data were not collected in the FRSS survey.)
The report, Students' Reports of School Crime: 1989 and 1995, provides students' perspectives at two points in time. This allows us to think about how violence and crime problems in the schools from the perspective of the students have changed between 1989 and 1995. The report presents the numbers and percentages of students, in public and private schools, who report being victimized at school and who report on various types of conditions in their schools. This report provides a broader picture in that it includes things that happened to students at school of which school officials were never aware. Some of the reported victimizations may represent less serious incidents.
Findings from the two reports about the levels of crime and violence in the schools
While the main focus of the report, Violence and Discipline Problems in U.S. Public Schools: 1996-97, is school-level reports of the numbers of crimes, ratios of incidents to the number of public school students of all ages are provided to give an indication of the relative frequency of the occurrence of these incidents. The following discussion presents such statistics for different types of crimes:
- Principals reported 424,000 incidents of the types asked about in the survey - or 10 incidents per 1,000 public school students. Out of those 10 incidents, 9.5 incidents were of the type categorized as less serious or nonviolent (including theft/larceny, vandalism, and physical attacks or fights without a weapon). The remaining .5 incidents per 1,000 students were of the type categorized as serious and violent (robberies, physical attacks or fights with a weapon, murders, suicides, rapes or sexual assaults).
- The most frequently reported crime that occurred in schools was physical attacks or fights without a weapon, with about 190,000 such incidents reported - or 4.4 per 1,000 public school students.
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- Approximately 116,000 incidents of theft or larceny were reported - or 2.7 per 1,000 public school students.
- About 98,000 incidents of vandalism - or 2.3 per 1,000 public school students.
- There were about 11,000 physical attacks or fights with a weapon - or 0.3 per 1,000 public school students.
- There were about 7,000 robberies - or 0.2 per public school 1,000 students.
- There were about 4,000 rapes or other incidents of sexual battery - or 0.1 incidents of rape/sexual battery per 1,000 public school students. (Rape or sexual battery was defined as rape, fondling, indecent liberties, child molestation or sodomy.)
Students' Reports of School Crime: 1989 and 1995 reports that, overall, the prevalence of victimization at school has not increased. There was no significant increase in victimization between 1989 and 1995. However, more students reporting being victims of serious violent acts in our schools and more students were aware of street gangs in their schools in 1995.
- The report shows that the percent of students who were victims of crime at school was not different in 1995 than in 1989 (14.5 percent in 1989 versus 14.6 percent in 1995).
- While still relatively rare, there was an .8 percentage point increase (from 3.4 to 4.2 percent of 12- to 19-year-old students) in the percent of students reporting violent victimization, which includes physical attacks or property being taken from a student by force with weapons, or threats.
- In 1989 and 1995, student reports of violent victimization were related to the reported presence of street gangs in the school. In 1995, 2.9 percent of students who reported no street gangs in school had been violently victimized, compared to 7.5 percent of students who reported that there were street gangs in their school.
- There was little or no change in the percent of students reporting property victimization at school (12.2 percent versus 11.6 percent of 12- to 19-year-old students).
Other findings from the two reports
In addition to the major findings on crime described above, the two reports provide further context for understanding the issues surrounding school safety.
The report, Violence and Discipline Problems in U.S. Public Schools: 1996-97, provides information about programs and policies that the schools have in place to ensure school safety.
- Most public schools reported having "zero tolerance" policies (defined as school or district policies mandating predetermined consequences for various student offenses) towards serious student offenses. The proportion of schools that had such policies ranged from 79 to 94 percent on violence, tobacco, alcohol, drugs, weapons other than firearms, and firearms.
- Most schools (84 percent) reported that they employed low levels of security measures to prevent violence, that is, that they restricted access to the school. Eleven percent of schools employed moderate security measures, defined as either a full-time guard or a part-time guard with or without metal detectors and restricted access. Two percent of schools had stringent security, defined as a full-time guard and daily or random metal detector checks. Three percent of schools had no security measures in place.
- The majority of schools (78 percent) had some sort of formal school violence prevention or reduction program, ranging from 1-day to ongoing programs. Schools in which a serious crime had occurred were more likely to have such programs than those in which no crime or only less serious crime had occurred (93 percent compared with 74 and 79 percent).
- Three percent of all public schools had school uniform requirements. Three quarters of these schools had instituted this policy in 1994 or later.
Students' Reports of School Crime: 1989 and 1995, contained information about student perceptions of the presence of gangs, guns, and drugs in the school.
- The percent of students reporting street gang presence at school nearly doubled between 1989 and 1995, increasing from 15.3 percent to 28.4 percent.
- In 1989, most students, 63.2 percent, reported that marijuana, cocaine, crack, or uppers/downers were available at school (either easy or hard to obtain). This number had increased somewhat, to 65.3 percent, in 1995.
- In 1995, few students reported taking a gun to school (less than one half of one percent), 5.3 percent reported seeing another student with a gun at school, and 12.7 percent reported knowing another student who had brought a gun to school.
How to obtain copies of the reports
Both reports can be downloaded from the NCES homepage on the Internet: http://nces.ed.gov. Single copies can be ordered through the National Library of Education at 1-800-424-1616 by asking for 98-030 (Violence and Discipline Problems in U.S. Public Schools) and 98-241 (Students' Reports of School Crime: 1989 and 1995).
Alternative sources:
- For Students' Reports of School Crime: 1989 and 1995, the Bureau of Justice Statistics Clearinghouse at 1-800-732-3277 and http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs.
- For Violence and Discipline Problems in U.S. Public Schools, contact the U.S. Government Printing Office by telephone (202) 512-1800 or fax (202) 512-2250. GPO number ISBN 0-16-049464-8.
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