Report on Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2021

• NCJ Number: 304625
• Author(s): 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
• Date Published: June 2022
• Length: 39 pages
• Agencies: BJS
• Publication Type: Publication

Abstract

This report is the 24th 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, in the Department of Education. It provides official estimates of school crime and safety from a variety of data sources, including national surveys of students, teachers, principals, and post-secondary institutions. It presents data on different types of student victimization, measures of school conditions, and student perceptions about their personal safety at school. This report supplements Incidence of Victimization at School and Away From School (NCJ 304624) in the Condition of Education, which BJS and NCES released on May 31, 2022.

Highlights:

• Between 2009 and 2020, the rate of nonfatal criminal victimization (including theft and violent victimization) decreased for students ages 12 to 18, from 51 to 11 victimizations per 1,000 students.
• Changes to school procedures related to the COVID-19 pandemic coincided with a decrease of more than 60% in the victimization rate at school from 2019 to 2020.
• Lower percentages of public schools in 2019–20 than in 2009–10 reported that each of the following discipline problems occurred at least once a week: student bullying (15 vs. 23%), student sexual harassment of other students (2 vs. 3%), and student harassment of other students based on sexual orientation or gender identity (2 vs. 3%).
• There were a total of 93 school shootings with casualties at public and private elementary and secondary schools in 2020–21—the highest number since 2000–01.
• In 2019–20, about 55% of public schools provided diagnostic mental health assessment services to evaluate students for mental health disorders, and 42% offered mental health treatment services.