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 (Henry 2000).
Ensuring safer schools requires establishing good indicators of the current state of school crime and safety across the nation and regularly updating and monitoring these indicators. This is the aim of Indicators of School Crime and Safety.
This report is the eleventh 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, and principals. Sources include results from
a study of violent deaths in schools, sponsored by
the U.S. Department of Education and the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention; the National
Crime Victimization Survey and School Crime
Supplement to the survey, sponsored by the BJS and
NCES, respectively; the Youth Risk Behavior Survey,
sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention; and the Schools and Staffing Survey and
School Survey on Crime and Safety, both sponsored
by NCES. The most recent data collection for each
indicator varied by survey, from 2003–04 to 2007.
Each data source has an independent sample design,
data collection method, and questionnaire design
or is the result of a universe data collection. All
comparisons described in this report are statistically
significant at the .05 level. In 2005 and 2007, the final
response rate for students ages 12–18 for the School
Crime Supplement (60 percent),1 fell below NCES
statistical standards; therefore, interpret the 2005
and 2007 data from Indicators 3, 8, 10, 11, 17, 18, and 21, with caution. Additional information about
methodology and the datasets analyzed in this report
may be found in appendix A (301 KB).
This report covers topics such as victimization, fights, bullying, classroom disorder, weapons, student perceptions of school safety, teacher injury, and availability and student use of drugs and alcohol. 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.