Juvenile Crime - School Crime

As reported in Indicators of School Crime and Safety 2003 (jointly published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Center for Education Statistics, 2004), in 2001 students 12 to 18 years of age were the victims of approximately two million nonfatal crimes of violence or theft at school. There were 32 school-related violent deaths in the United States from July 1, 1999 through June 30, 2000. Of those, 24 were homicides (16 of which were students) and eight were suicides (6 of which were students), a decline from a peak of 49 school-related homicides and suicides in the 1995–1996 school year. This number translates into a rate of less than one homicide or suicide at school per one million students. In the 2001–2002 school year there were 17 violent deaths in the nation's schools. Between July 1, 1992 and June 30, 2000 there were 390 school-associated violent deaths in elementary and secondary schools. Of this number 234 were homicides and 43 were suicides of school-aged youth. During this same period some 24,000 youths aged five to 19 years old were victims of homicide and over 16,000 committed suicide away from school. In each of the years surveyed, students were 70 times more likely to be the victim of a homicide away from school than at school.

Despite the relative safety of schools, in the five years between 1997 and 2002, several school shootings received national media attention.

• March 5, 2001: Two were killed and 13 wounded at Santee High School in Santana, California when a student opened fire from a school bathroom.
• February 29, 2000: A six-year-old student was killed at Theo J. Buell Elementary School near Flint, Michigan, by a fellow student (also six years old) who brought a handgun to school.
• April 20, 1999: Twelve students and a teacher were fatally shot at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, by students Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, who eventually killed themselves after their hour-long rampage.
• May 21, 1998: Two students were killed and 25 were wounded at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon, by student Kip Kinkel, who also murdered his parents.
• December 1, 1997: Three students were killed and five were wounded as they participated in a prayer circle at Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky.
• October 1, 1997: Two students were killed and seven were wounded by student Luke Woodham, 16, who had earlier killed his mother.

According to the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance—United States, 2001 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2002), a self-report survey of high school students, 5.7 percent of students reported carrying a gun on at least one day in the thirty days prior to the survey. Overall, male students were significantly more likely than females to carry a gun (10.3 percent compared with 1.3 percent). A total of 17.4 percent of students nationwide reported carrying some type of weapon, such as a gun, knife or club, on at least one day prior to the survey. In 2001, 29.3 percent of males and 6.2 percent of females reported carrying a weapon on school property. Black female students (8.6 percent) were more likely than white female students (5.1 percent) to have carried a weapon in school, while white male students (31.3 percent) were more likely than black male students (22.4 percent) to have carried a weapon in school.

The percentage of secondary school students who reported feeling unsafe at school decreased from 1995 to 1999, with the percentage between 1999 and 2001 remaining unchanged, according to Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2003. The percentage of all secondary school students who reported carrying a weapon dropped from 12 percent in 1993 to just 6 percent in 2001. In 2001 5 percent of secondary school students reported avoiding one or more places at school, a decrease from 9 percent in 1995. Twelve percent reported that in the previous six months, someone at school had used a derogatory word against them related to their race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. Some 36 percent reported seeing hate-related graffiti at school.

Nonfatal School Crimes

In 2001 some 161,000 students ages 12 to 18 were victims of nonfatal serious violent crimes (rape, sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault). When simple assault was factored in, the number of school-related victimizations increased significantly, to about 764,000 in 2001. The violent victimization rate for students at school was 28 crimes per 1,000 students in 2001, a drop from 71 crimes per 1,000 students in 1992.

There were no significant differences in the rates of victimization for students at urban and suburban schools in 2001, although students in urban schools were more likely than suburban students to be victimized away from school. Students between the ages of 12 and 14 were more likely to be victims of school-related crime than were older students 15 through 18 years of age. Older students were more likely to be victimized away from school than were younger students.

Crimes against Teachers

Teachers are also subject to violence in the schools, either committed by students or by those from outside the school. Some 1.3 million nonfatal crimes at school between 1997 and 2001 were committed against teachers. About one-fourth of those (473,000) were violent crimes, including rape, sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated or simple assault. Thefts accounted for the remaining 817,000 nonfatal crimes against teachers. During this period there were about 48,000 serious violent crimes (about 10 percent of the violent crimes reported), resulting in a rate of victimization of 21 violent crimes per 1,000 teachers, and two serious violent crimes per 1,000 teachers.

Senior and junior high school teachers were more likely to be victimized by violent crimes (usually simple assault) and experienced a higher incidence of theft than elementary school teachers. Male teachers were victimized at a rate of 39 violent crimes per 1,000 teachers, compared to a rate of 16 for female teachers. Teachers in urban schools were victimized at a rate of 28 violent crimes per 1,000 teachers, compared to a rate of 16 in suburban schools and 13 in rural areas. Teachers in urban areas were also more likely to be victims of theft (42 thefts per 1,000 teachers) than were those in rural areas (26 thefts per 1,000 teachers).