VICTIMS OF CRIMES COMMITTED AT SCHOOL
Threats Facing Middle and High School Students
Teenage students face a special problem. Compul- sory education laws compel them to attend their local high school, unless their parents can afford a private or parochial school or are able to home- school them. By entering into the mainstream of high school activities, they are forced to interact with potential victimizers. The resulting experi- ences may be aggravating, terrifying, and even deadly. On rare occasions, bullied students turn the tables on their tormenters, unleash retaliatory violence, and in the process become assailants themselves. Unfortunately, in an environment bur- dened by threats of attacks, counterattacks, security procedures, and other potential disruptions, tea- chers will find it difficult to stick to lesson plans, and distracted targets and their classmates will have trouble learning what they need to know.
To measure the relative safety of various schools and school systems, several federal govern- ment agencies monitor reports of incidents of vio- lence and theft. Statistics from the BJS’s annual NCVS reveal how many adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 suffer acts of violence and theft that they are willing to disclose to interviewers, whether or not these negative experiences were
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reported to the school authorities or the police. The statistics permit a comparison of the risks students faced on school property as distinct from other places, including their own homes and neighbor- hoods (see Table 11.1).
The data assembled in Table 11.1 from the NCVS shows one reassuring finding that should not be a surprise: The victimization rate for students in middle/junior high schools and high schools dropped sharply from 1992 to 2012, a trend that mirrored a general decline in crime rates burdening Americans of all ages and at all locations. Property crimes vastly outnumber serious violent crimes both inside and outside of schools. But while 12- to 18- year-olds were on school grounds, they suffered more thefts than at home or in their neighbor- hoods. Over the 20-year span, theft rates in both settings dropped sharply and the “at school/away from school” gap narrowed. As for serious acts of violence (not counting simple assaults like fistfights), the worst year was in 1992 outside of school and 1996 inside of schools. Over two decades, the com- bined rate of rapes, sexual assaults, robberies, and aggravated assaults committed against students inside schools subsided considerably while out on the streets it dropped even more dramatically. In sum, while under the supervision of responsible adults, students are less likely to suffer serious violence in the classrooms, lunchrooms, stairwells, corridors, and school yards than when they are out on the streets or back at home. Even though school safety improved impressively from 1992 to 2012,
the level of violence in the students’ communities subsided even more dramatically. And school grounds still were the scenes of more thefts of per- sonal items in 2012 than the suddenly safer streets (see the bottom row of Table 11.1).
However, as with all databases, the accuracy of school crime statistics must be examined objec- tively. Occasionally claims appear in the news media that middle and high school safety officers (sometimes called school resource officers), princi- pals, and even top school system administrators may seek to suppress initial reports or the eventual offi- cial records of particular incidents to make schools seem safer than they really are. Principals may be acting in good faith, and certain disruptive beha- viors surely fall into a gray area where discretion legitimately can be exercised. But intentional statis- tical manipulation and underreporting of victimiza- tions violates federal No Child Left Behind legislation. It also does a disservice to students, par- ents, and members of the staff because if a school does not get the attention and resources that it deserves, everyone inside it will be at greater risk (Gootman, 2007).
As always, murders are the most accurately counted of all crimes. Fortunately, there are not many of these tragedies on school property to count. The graph in Figure 11.1 shows data about slayings of youths between the ages of 5 and 19 since the start of the 1990s, when school-based data collection and reporting systems were first established (note that murders of teachers, staff,
T A B L E 11.1 Victimization Rates per 1,000 Students, 12 to 18 Years Old, at School Compared to Away from School, 1992–2012
Type of Crime and Location
Serious Violence at School
Serious Violence Away from School Thefts at School Thefts Away from School
Year 1992 8 44 114 78 1996 14 33 85 60 2000 8 15 49 45 2004 4 10 41 27 2008 5 10 25 19 2012 3 7 24 18
NOTE: Serious violence includes forcible rape, sexual assaults, robberies, and aggravated assaults but excludes simple assaults.
SOURCE: NCVS findings, compiled by the NCES, Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2013, adapted from Table 2.1.
AD D I T ION AL GROUP S OF V I C T IMS WIT H SPE C IAL P ROB L EMS 383
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and parents on school grounds are not included in these body counts).
Often a single horrific outbreak of mass murder accounts for most of the deaths of students in a given year. The vicious mass shooting of 20 ele- mentary school children (and six adults) by a severely disturbed young man (who had access to his mother’s arsenal) in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, is a sad example that will cause the death toll for the 2012–2013 school year to spike (not shown in Figure 11.1). The trend line shows that school security has improved to some degree. The number of rare yet tragic murders remained relatively constant during most of the 1990s, even though killings between adolescents beyond school grounds declined during this time. At the end of the 1990s, a substantial drop in slayings on school grounds took place, and this reduced level of lethal violence was
maintained during most of the first decade of the twenty-first century, except for the 2006–2007 school year (see Figure 11.1).
Unfortunately, a spate of school shootings has overshadowed that positive trend in public dis- course and in the minds of concerned parents. Although they are highly unusual, these sudden and senseless outbursts of gunfire directed at fellow students, teachers, and administrators by distraught and often suicidal assailants have permanently changed the environment of the nation’s elemen- tary, middle, and high schools. To curb violence and theft on school grounds, many superinten- dents and principals now take security considera- tions much more seriously. Reports about threats issued by disgruntled students usually are checked out. Many schools have beefed up security by hiring more school safety officers, arming them,
School YeYeY ar
N u m b er
o f M u rd er s
F I G U R E 11.1 Trends in Murders of Students at Elementary, Middle, and High Schools, United States, School Years 1992 to 2011 SOURCES: National Center for Educational Statistics, 2013.
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carrying out searches of backpacks, installing sur- veillance cameras and metal detectors at their front doors, devising lockdown procedures, and institut- ing conflict resolution and antibullying programs. To put the problem of school violence into per- spective, it is important to note that each year the proportion of youngsters slain on school grounds is less than 2 percent of all youth killings. In other words, more than 98 percent of children who are murdered are killed in settings other than school. Therefore, statistically speaking, even turbulent high schools remain relatively safe compared to nearby streets, parks, and homes. Put another way, students are close to 50 times more likely to be murdered away from school than on school grounds (NCES, 2008; 2013).