Introduction
Schools and colleges are valued institutions that help build upon the Nation’s foundations and serve as an arena where the growth and stability of future generations begin. Crime in schools and colleges is therefore one of the most troublesome social problems in the Nation today. Not only does it affect those involved in the criminal incident, but it also hinders societal growth and stability. In that light, it is vital to understand the characteristics surrounding crime in schools, colleges, and universities and the offenders who reportedly commit these offenses so that law enforcement, policy makers, school administrators, and the public can properly combat and reduce the amount of crime occurring at these institutions.
Tremendous resources have been used to develop a myriad of federal and nonfederal studies that focus on identifying the characteristics surrounding violent crime, property crime, and/or crimes against society in schools. The objective of such studies is to identify and measure the crime problem facing the Nation’s more than 90,000 schools and the nearly 50 million students in attendance.1 The findings of these studies have generated significant debates surrounding the actual levels of violent and nonviolent crimes and the need for preventative policies. Some research indicates there has been an increase in school violence activities, such as a study from the School Violence Resource Center which showed that the percentage of high school students who were threatened or injured with a weapon increased from 1993 to 2001.2 Other research notes decreases in student victimization rates for both violent and nonviolent crimes during a similar time period (1992–2002).3 Moreover, the circumstances surrounding crime in schools, colleges, and universities are not always the ones that gain wide notoriety. The most significant problems in schools are not necessarily issues popularly considered important as most conflicts are related to everyday school interactions.4 Furthermore, the National Center for Education Statistics notes that “it is difficult to gauge the scope of crime and violence in schools without collecting data, given the large amount of attention devoted to isolated incidents of extreme school violence.”5 These conflicting conclusions concerning the ability to measure the overall situation of crime in school, college, and university environments make it difficult for policy makers to assess the effectiveness of policies and their impact on this phenomenon.
The Nation’s need to understand crime as it occurs at schools, colleges, and universities was officially placed into law by the US Congress with the passage of the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act6 (Clery Act). Prompted by the 1986 rape and murder of a 19-year-old Lehigh College student in her dorm room, the Clery Act requires universities and colleges to report crime statistics, based on Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) definitions, to the Department of Education (ED) and to disclose crime statistics to nearly 16 million students attending any one of the Nation’s approximately 4,200 degree-granting post-secondary institutions.7 The Clery Act, most recently amended in 2000, demands stiff financial penalties from post-secondary institutions found to misreport crime statistics to the ED. Such penalties are currently set at $27,500 per incident.8 Though the Clery Act requires colleges and universities to report their crime data to the ED, neither it nor any other Federal legislation requires these institutions to report the data to the UCR Program.
Situations surrounding crime at school locations vary based on the offender’s motive and the intended victim. For example, incidents involving student offenders and student victims constitute the stereotypical definition of crime at schools, colleges, and universities where the offender and victim are present to participate in the activities occurring at the institution. However, there are situations involving adult and/or juvenile offenders and victims, where the school serves only as an offense location because neither the offender nor the victim is present to participate in school functions. Criminal acts due to political motivation, hate crimes, and crimes perpetrated by offenders against victims who are not instructors or students and have no other relation to the school are examples of such situations.
In an attempt to shed light on crime in schools, colleges, and universities, this study used incident-based crime data the FBI received from a limited set of law enforcement agencies through the UCR Program. Some of the findings are perhaps contrary to popular perceptions; for example, over the 5-year study period, the use of knives/cutting instruments was over three times more prevalent than the use of a gun. (Based on Table 8.) Other findings reflect conventional wisdom; for example, males were nearly 3.6 times more likely to be arrested for crime in schools and colleges than females. (Based on Table 12.)
School Violence Index
