Analyses and Results

Incident Characteristics

Of the 17,065,074 incidents reported through the NIBRS by law enforcement from 2000 to 2004, 558,219 (3.3 percent) occurred at schools. There were 589,534 offense records, 619,453 offenses, and 688,612 offender records reported in those incidents. The statistics discussed in this report are based on the 476,803 offenders for whom at least one attribute (age, gender, race, and/or number of offenders) was known.¹³ However, none of the characteristics for offenders (age, gender, race, or number of offenders) were known in 211,809 of the 688,612 offender records. During these 5 years, there were 181,468 arrestees associated with crime in schools. (See Table 2.) According to UCR guidelines, the arrestee may be different than the person who was reported as the offender.

Table 2: Overview of Crime in Schools, by Year

¹Includes the number of unknown offender records.²Unknown offender records are reported when nothing is known about the offenders in the incident, including age, gender, race, and number of offender(s).See p. 99 of NIBRS Volume 1: Data Collection Guidelines, August 2000, for more.

Note: See the study text for specific data definitions, uses, and limitations.

Offender Characteristics

Age was known for 393,938 offenders.¹⁴ Of those, most (38.0 percent) were 13-15 year olds. The second largest group was 16-18 year olds (30.7 percent), followed by those offenders aged 19 or older (18.2 percent) and 10-12 year olds (11.0 percent). Offenders 9 years old or under accounted for 2.1 percent of the offenders where the age was known. By looking at only those offenders for whom the age was known, offenders 18 years of age or younger were 4.5 times more likely to be involved in crime at schools than older offenders. There were 82,865 offenders for whom the age was unknown (but other characteristics, such as gender and/or race, were known to the police). (Based on Table 3.)

Table 3: Offenders¹ of Crime in Schools, by Age², by Year

¹At least one other characteristic (gender, race, or number of offenders) was reported.²Law enforcement may report a range of ages. NIBRS reports the midpoint of the age range (e.g., offender age 25-35 is reported as 30).³Over the 5-year study period, there were 211,809 offenders for whom the age, gender, race, and number of offenders were not reported.

Note: See the study text for specific data definitions, uses, and limitations.

For the 5-year study period, the majority (313,556 or 76.7 percent) of the offenders about whom gender was known were males, who were reported as offenders 3.3 times more often than females. Of the offenders for whom age, race, and/or number of offenders was known, the gender was unknown to law enforcement for 67,796 offenders (14.2 percent). (Based on Table 4.)

Table 4: Offenders¹ of Crime in Schools, by Gender, by Year

¹At least one other characteristic (age, race, or number of offenders) was reported.²Over the 5-year study period, there were 211,809 offenders for whom the age, sex, race, and number of offenders were not reported.

Note: See the study text for specific data definitions, uses, and limitations.

Of the 394,173 offenders about whom race was known, white offenders accounted for 71.1 percent (280,178); black offenders, 27.4 percent (107,878); and all other races combined, less than 2 percent (6,117).¹⁵ When race was known, whites were 2.5 times more likely to be reported as an offender at a school than were all other races combined. Of the total offenders about whom age and/or gender were known (476,803), race was unknown for 17.3 percent. (Based on Table 5.)

Table 5: Offenders¹ of Crime in Schools, by Race, by Year

¹At least one other characteristic (gender, age, or number of offenders) was reported.²Over the 5-year study period, there were 211,809 offenders for whom the age, sex, race, and number of offenders were not reported.

Note: See the study text for specific data definitions, uses, and limitations.

Victim-to-Offender Relationships

Table 6 provides breakdowns for victim-to-offender relationships, an important aspect to understand when examining crime at schools. It is also important to understand the information in Table 6 reflects a count of relationships and not merely the number of victims and/or offenders. For example, if an incident has four victims and two offenders, there are eight relationship pairings noted in the table (4 victims multiplied by 2 offenders equals 8 relationships).

By far, the relationship type most often reported for crime in schools was Acquaintance, with 107,533 instances occurring during the 5-year study period. When Acquaintance was combined with the Otherwise Known category (50,486 instances), these two categories were 3.3 times more likely to occur as the relationship than were all other victim-to-offender relationships in which the relationship was known. The relationship Victim was Offender was reported for 15,539 occurrences, or 7.5 percent of known relationships. This type of relationship is one in which all participants in the incidents were victims and offenders of the same offense, such as assaults being reported as a result of a brawl or fight.¹⁶ Stranger was reported for 7.5 percent (15,511 instances) of the relationships. The remaining percentages were widely dispersed among all other relationship categories.

Table 6: Relationship¹ of Victims to Offenders of Crime in Schools, by Year

¹There is not a 1:1 correspondence of relationships to incidents. For example, if an incident has 4 victims and 2 offenders, 8 relationship pairings are noted (4 victims multiplied by 2 offenders equals 8 relationships).²Victim was Offender is a relationship in which all participants in the incidents were victims and offenders of the same offense, such as assaults being reported as a result of a brawl or fight.

Note: See the study text for specific data definitions, uses, and limitations.

Offense CharacteristicsA rich level of detail about offense characteristics is captured in the NIBRS format. Of particular interest for the present study is the month of occurrence/report, use of weapons/force, and suspected use of alcohol, computers, and/or drugs by offenders.¹⁷

Table 7 provides the number of incidents as they were reported by month for each year of the study. The month with the most incidents for the 5-year period was October, with a total of 66,726. Among the 5-year totals, the month of March had the second-highest number of reported incidents (58,363), and September followed with 57,417 incidents. It should be noted, however, that on some occasions, the date of the incident is unknown to law enforcement.¹⁸ For example, a school principal notices vandalism at the school on Monday morning and reports the crime. Though the principal knows the vandalism did not occur before Friday afternoon, neither he nor law enforcement can determine whether it happened Friday evening, Saturday, Sunday, or early Monday morning. Therefore, law enforcement reports the earliest date in which the incident could have occurred (Friday) as the date of the incident. In other instances, a crime occurs during a holiday or summer break and is not discovered and reported until the start of school or after the change of a month. Law enforcement enters the date of the report as the date of the incident, potentially counting the incident in a different month than when it occurred. In this study, incidents in which the dates of reports were used accounted for 19.5 percent of the incidents reported as having occurred in school locations. However, the percentages by month for the dates of reports and the actual dates of incidents are very similar (within 0.5 percent for each month), which indicates that only a small percentage of incidents may have occurred in prior months.

Note: Report date counts are included in incident date totals. See the study text for specific data definitions, uses, and limitations.

The particular types of weapons/force used are shown in Table 8.¹⁹ The most common weapon type reported was personal weapons (the offender’s hands, fists, feet, etc.), which were reported 98,394 times. Personal weapons were 3.4 times more likely to have been reported than any other weapon type (excluding None and Unknown). The weapon type None was reported 16,260 times in the study, which is relatively large compared to the other known weapon types. See the table in Appendix B for a cross-table of weapon type by offense type.

Of the 3,461 times guns were reportedly used, handguns were most often reported (58.0 percent).²⁰ Knives/cutting instruments were reportedly used 10,970 times, which outweighs the number of times guns were used by 3.2 to 1. Law enforcement reported the weapon type Other 11,680 times.²¹ This is quite significant when compared to specific weapon types; however, NIBRS data cannot indicate what types of weapons would fit into this category. The Other weapon category may contain, for example, acid, pepper spray, belts, deadly diseases, scalding hot water, or other weapon types not covered by the NIBRS weapon type codes.

Note: See the study text for specific data definitions, uses, and limitations.

Table 9 provides the reported instances in each offense record in which the offenders were suspected of using alcohol, computers, and/or drugs.²² The data show that such use was minimal in situations occurring at schools during the 5-year study period. Of the 589,534 offense records, reports of offenders suspected of using drugs totaled 32,366, while reports of alcohol use totaled 5,844. Suspected computer use by offenders was reported for 1,655 instances. The offender’s suspected use of one or more of these items may have occurred during or shortly before the incident, and the use may have occurred in another location.

Note: See the study text for specific data definitions, uses, and limitations.

Arrestee CharacteristicsIn addition to the exploration of offenders, it is also important to examine the characteristics of the arrestees associated with crimes in schools. Though 211,809 offender reports for the 5-year study period were such that age, gender, race, and number of offenders were not reported, some or all of these characteristics were available for 181,468 persons arrested for offenses that occurred at schools. (See Table 2.)

Table 10 shows the offense for which the arrestee was apprehended. The most common offense code reported in arrestee records was simple assault–a crime against persons, followed by drug/narcotic violations–a crime against society. These two arrest offense codes were reportedly associated with more than half (52.2 percent) of the total arrestees. Destruction/damage/vandalism of property accounted for a relatively small portion of arrestees (6.6 percent). All other larceny and burglary, both crimes against property, involved 5.8 and 5.0 percent of the arrestees, respectively. Each of the remaining arrest offense codes accounted for less than 5.0 percent of the arrestees. Note that the arrest code does not necessarily match any of the offense codes in an offense segment in the same incident.

Note: See the study text for specific data definitions, uses, and limitations.

The largest group of arrestees about whom the age²³ was known (41.8 percent) was 13 to 15 year olds. Arrestees who were 16 to 18 years old accounted for 32.7 percent; 19 or older, 14.2 percent; 10 to 12 years old, 10.2 percent; and 5 to 9 years old, 1.1 percent. Twelve arrestees who committed crimes at schools were reportedly age 4 or under.²⁴ For those arrestees about whom the age was known, arrestees were 6.0 times more likely to be 18 years of age or younger than to be 19 years of age or older. The age was unknown for 171 of the arrestees. (Based on Table 11.)

Table 11: Arrestees of Crime in Schools, by Age¹, by Year

¹Law enforcement may report a range of ages. NIBRS reports the midpoint of the age range (e.g., offender age 25-35 is reported as 30).Note: See the study text for specific data definitions, uses, and limitations.

During the 5-year period, 78.2 percent of the 181,468 arrestees were males, who were 3.6 times more likely to be arrested than females. (Based on Table 12.)

Table 12: Arrestees of Crime in Schools, by Gender, by Year

Note: See the study text for specific data definitions, uses, and limitations.

Of the 179,109 arrestees about whom the race was known, 72.8 percent were white; 25.3 percent were black; and 1.9 percent were all other race categories combined. White was 2.7 times more likely to be reported as the arrestee race than were any of the other race categories. A total of 2,359 arrestees were reported with an unknown race. (Based on Table 13.)

Note: See the study text for specific data definitions, uses, and limitations.

Law enforcement agencies submitting NIBRS data are not required to report the ethnicity of the arrestee to the FBI. Of the 136,957 arrestees about whom ethnicity was known and reported, 89.4 percent were non-Hispanic. Excluding unknown ethnicity, arrestees were 8.4 times more likely to be non-Hispanic. (Based on Table 14.) There were 18,208 arrestees about whom the ethnicity status was not reported during the 5-year study period.

¹Over the 5-year study period, there were 18,208 arrestees for whom the ethnicity was not reported.Note: See the study text for specific data definitions, uses, and limitations.

As with supplying the ethnicity of an arrestee, providing resident status for an arrestee is an optional reporting field in the NIBRS. For the purpose of this study, a resident is a person who maintains his/her permanent home for legal purposes in the locality (that is, town, city, or community) where the school is located and in which the crime occurred.²⁵ Of the 145,339 arrestees about whom resident status was known and reported, 79.2 percent were residents. When the resident status was known, arrestees were nearly 3.8 times more likely to be residents of the community in which the crime took place. (Based on Table 15.) During the 5 years of data submissions from 2000 to 2004, there were 17,767 arrestees about whom resident status was not reported to the UCR Program.

¹Over the 5-year study period, there were 17,767 arrestees for whom the resident status was not reported.²A resident is a person who maintains his/her permanent home for legal purposes in the locality (i.e., town, city, or community) where the crime took place.Note: See the study text for specific data definitions, uses, and limitations.