A report from the National Center for Education Statistics says that nearly 3 percent of students, ages 12-18, reported that they were the victims of crime at school in the previous six months.
During the 2015–16 school year, the rate of violent incidents was higher in middle schools (27 incidents per 1,000 students) than it was in high schools (16 incidents) or primary schools (15 incidents).
The Los Angeles Unified school police will stop giving citations for fighting, petty theft and other minor offenses, moving instead to refer students to counseling or other programs. The step back from punitive law enforcement actions reflects growing research that handling minor offenses with police actions does not necessarily make campuses safer. Those actions do often push struggling students to drop out and get in more serious trouble with law enforcement.
While large-scale and dramatic acts of school violence have drawn a public focus to safety concerns in U.S. schools, violent deaths at school remain statistically rare, says a government report.
Many schools employ drug testing to deter illegal substance use by students, but new research from Counsel and Heal has revealed that these checks fail to dissuade teens from trying drugs, Fox News reports.
The 2012 Indicators of School Crime and Safety report also notes that 77 percent of students (age 12-18) reported having security cameras in their schools.
