NCJ Number
171902
Date Published
1995
Length
72 pages
Annotation
A telephone survey of 51 State education agencies gathered information on their reporting practices with respect to school-based crime, violence, and discipline and received responses from 45 States and the District of Columbia.
Abstract
Questions focused on the major types of data collected, the data sources, the frequency of reporting, school and demographic populations covered, the format of the records, records maintenance and archiving, and capacities for case-based analysis. Additional questions gathered information on the uses of the data by the State education agency and on the State legislative or administrative mandates for the various reporting systems. Results revealed that 24 States were reporting States, including 4 States that will be implementing their systems in school year 1995-96. Twenty-two States were defined as non-reporting for the purposes of this survey. The major proportion of data collected consisted of data on disciplinary actions and data on criminal or prohibited incidents. Sixteen of the 24 reporting States collected firearms data, typically as a subset of data on disciplinary actions or criminal incidents. Three States collect only firearms or weapons data. Thirteen of the 24 reporting States require reporting of disciplinary actions, 13 require reporting of some range of criminal or prohibited behaviors, and only 5 States require the reporting of both disciplinary and criminal incident data. State legislation is the basis for the majority of reporting mandates. Findings indicated that States have varied reporting practices and data classification systems and that many States use resources and data effectively. Chart and state-by-state summaries