Bureau of Justice Statistice (BJS) and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) have released Report on Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2023. This report provides a compilation of key findings on school crime and safety from a variety of data sources, including national surveys of students, teachers, principals, and postsecondary institutions. It presents indicators on elementary and secondary student and teacher victimizations; the school environment; fights and weapons; safety, security, and mental health practices; and postsecondary campus safety and security.
Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics
Authors: Véronique Irwin, National Center for Education Statistics; Ke Wang, American Institutes for Research; Jiashan Cui, American Institutes for Research; Alexandra Thompson, Bureau of Justice Statistics
Published July 2024
This report is the 26th in a series of annual publications produced jointly by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Institute of Education Sciences, Department of Education. It provides summary statistics to inform the nation about current aspects of crime and safety in schools.
The report compiles key findings from a variety of data sources, including national surveys of students, teachers, principals, and postsecondary institutions. It also presents data on elementary and secondary student and teacher victimization; school environment; fights and weapons; safety, security, and mental health practices; and postsecondary campus safety and security. Indicator 2: Incidence of Nonfatal Victimization at School and Away From School includes data from BJS’s National Crime Victimization Survey. Each of the 23 indicators is presented separately, and all indicators can be found in the Condition of Education at NCES.
Highlights
- At school, the nonfatal criminal victimization rate (including theft and violent victimization) for students ages 12–18 decreased between 2012 and 2022 (from 52 to 22 victimizations per 1,000 students).
- The percentage of students ages 12–18 who reported being bullied during school was lower in 2021–22 than in 2010–11 (19 vs. 28 percent).
- Lower percentages of public school teachers in 2020–21 than in 2011–12 reported being threatened with injury by a student from their school (6 vs. 10 percent) or being physically attacked by a student from their school (4 vs. 6 percent).
- Lower percentages of students ages 12–18 in 2021–22 than in 2010–11 reported the following unfavorable conditions at their school: gang presence (6 vs. 18 percent), being called hate-related words (7 vs. 9 percent), or seeing hate-related graffiti (23 vs. 28 percent).
- The percentage of students in grades 9–12 who reported having been in a physical fight on school property in the previous 12 months was lower in 2021 than in 2011 (6 vs. 12 percent).
