School crime rates cut in half

WASHINGTON — One in 20 students was a victim of violence or theft at school in 2003, the government said in a report that shows school crime rates about were half what they were 10 years earlier.

Yet the school crime rate essentially has leveled off, showing no change since 2000, according to a report Sunday from the departments of Education and Justice.

There were about 28 crimes of rape, sexual assault, robbery and physical assault for every 1,000 students in 2003, compared with 59 per 1,000 a decade earlier. The study looked at crimes against the 26.4 million students who were 12 years old to 18 years old in 2003.

In 2002, the violent crime rate per 1,000 students was 24, but government researchers said there was no statistically significant change between 2002 and 2003 because the numbers are estimates from relatively small surveys.

"The level of precision isn't good enough to say whether there has been a change," said Thomas Snyder, a report author at the Education Department.

Snyder said, however, there has been no change in the crime rate in several years. The report does not attempt to explain rises and falls.

The drop from the early 1990s is long-standing and large enough to overcome any doubts about comparing one year to the next, according to the report. Indeed, it mirrors the general trend in the United States, in which crime is at a 30-year low.

In 2003, there were about 738,700 violent crimes involving students at school and about 846,400 away from school property. For the most serious nonfatal violent crimes — rape, assault and robbery — the crime rates were at least 50 percent lower in school than away from school every year from 1992 to 2003.

Students were twice as likely to be victims of serious violent crimes away from school than at school, but more likely to have things stolen from them at school than elsewhere.

Pupils from poorer families were more likely to be victims of a violent crime at school than were wealthier students, while the opposite was true for theft, with richer students more likely to be victims.

Some school safety experts have attributed the fall in the crime rate in the last decade to installing metal detectors, hiring more security personnel and implementing programs aimed at curbing bullying, which can lead to more serious crimes.