1.5 Million Non-Fatal Crimes at School in 2005

In the National Institute for Justice’s NIJ Journal, Issue #262, pages 42 – 46, managing editor Beth Schuster examined trends of violence and safety in public schools bringing to light some important information. Her article cites studies regarding 37 school shootings and patterns of behaviors of attackers before attacks. There’s a wealth of very good and important information in her article and in other government publications deserving broader attention. We will be referencing some of this information so that it gets more public exposure.and use it in a follow-up article to get an even better quantitative understanding of what is happening in our school system, today.

The following comes from one section of her report, “The Larger Scope of School Violence”:

School shootings are only part of the problem of violence in schools. During the 2005–2006 school year, for example, 86 percent of public schools reported that at least one violent incident, theft or other crime occurred at their school, according to the 2007 Indicators of School Crime and Safety by the U.S. departments of Education and Justice.

In 2005, students aged 12–18 were victims of approximately 1.5 million nonfatal crimes at school. In the same study, 8 percent of students in grades 9–12 reported being threatened or injured with a weapon in the past 12 months. Add another 28 percent of students reported having been bullied at school during the previous six months. Six percent more said that they had avoided a school activity or a particular place in school during the past six months because of fear of attack or harm.

This really should not come as a surprise to us. If you think back to when you were in school, how many times did you witness some pushing and shoving in the hallway? How many times did you actually see a fight? It happened frequently enough when I was in school more than twenty years ago. If anything, we’ve seen people become less civil to one another, growing quicker to anger over the years.

What used to be "old-fashioned fist fights" have a greater potential for escalating into the use of weapons – about one in twelve students have reported being threatened with a weapon? Yes, some of it is hot air with kids letting loose steam, but 1.5 million non-fatal crimes? That deserves attention and we’ll be on it with more articles coming soon.

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