WHERE CAN PRACTITIONERS FIND RELIABLE DATA ON SCHOOL VIOLENCE?

The following resources can be helpful for practitioners who are seeking statistics or in-depth information about school violence. Each of these sources has its limitations, however. Some do not include details about circumstances surrounding the violence, (such as location, or weapons used) or factors contributing to it (such as alcohol and drug use, or mental health status). There can also be delays in the availability of data.

Youth Risk Behavior

• CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey: Data is collected every two years for grades 9-12. In 1997, 12 states did not conduct the survey. The data can be accessed online at www.cdc.gov.

• Monitoring the Future (MTF): An ongoing study of American youth developed by University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. www.monitoringthefuture.org

• CSN publication: Youth Violence: Locating and Using the Data (1996) by Marc Posner. This guide discusses data collection, analysis, and interpretation, profiles the most important data sources, and provides information on how to locate and use national and local sources of data on youth violence. To order this item, contact the National Maternal and Child Health Clearinghouse: www.nmchc.org; (888) 434-4MCH, item #L043. This publication is also available online in Adobe Acrobat format.

School Crime/Violence

• Data Source for School-Associated Violent Deaths: published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA 275:22; pp 1729-1733, 1996).

• School Incident Records and Discipline Reports: These narrative reports provide data elements on gender, age/grade, type of incident, and type of weapon involved in acts of violence occurring at schools. They can be obtained directly from school districts.

• State Education Agencies (SEAs): 24 SEAs collect data on school crime and violence from local education agencies. Examples of high quality data can be found in the Annual Reports of the Delaware, Florida, and South Carolina SEAs. For more information, see www.ed.gov/Programs/bastmp/SEA.htm.

• National Center for Education Statistics: The U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics produces Annual Reports on School Safety and School Crime, the Schools and Staffing Survey, Principal/School Disciplinarian Survey, the National Household Education Survey, and additional surveys through the Fast Response Survey System, as well as Supplements to the National Crime Victimization Survey (with the Bureau of Justice Statistics). The annual reports are available online at nces.ed.gov.

Crime/Violence: General

• National Incident-Based Reporting System: The newly redesigned Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program of the U.S. Department of Justice will have information on arrests and criminal incidents reported to police. Twenty-two categories of information are available, such as information on victims, offenders, types of incidents, and incident locations. This system has been implemented in 13 states. For more information, see www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/nibrs.htm.

• Hate Crime Statistics Act Data Collecting Systems: These systems contain data provided voluntarily by law enforcement agencies to the FBI as part of the UCR program.

• Police Reports: The reports contain detailed information on crime incidents, including the event, time, place, victim, suspect, relationship of the suspect to the victim, weapon, and injury.

• Medical Examiner and Coroner Data: This provides data on the victim and the characteristics and circumstances of the injury.

Additional Resources

For assistance in identifying local, state, and national data on violence, please contact Nilam Patel at CSN Injury Data and Technical Assistance.
6505 Alvarado Road, Suite 208, San Diego, CA 92120
Tel: (619) 594-3691
E-mail: npatel@sdsuf.projects.sdsu.edu

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