NYC Public School crime spirals upward

The New York Police Department just released its first quarter stats for crime in the city’s public schools, and the news is not good.

School safety incidents of all types that were reported by the police increased by 5% over the same period in 2017. This comes after a soaring crime rate increase in late 2017 when major crimes, arrests, summonses and the use of restraints all increased. The Fall saw the first school murder in more than two decades, and the first time a gun was fired inside a school in more than 15 years.

The school safety incidents include a variety of non-criminal and criminal problems. The Student Safety Act (SSA) requires that the New York City Police Department publicly issue quarterly reports on arrests, summonses, and other police-involved incidents in New York City public schools.

Crime in the public schools range from the minor to the major, which included robberies, assault, arson, rape, and sexual assault. There were 16 rapes and sexual assaults. Disturbingly, the police made 20 charges of terrorism in the public schools. This sounds maybe a little bit more disturbing than it was because includes concerted attempts at intimidation and coercion of staff, security, and police. There were not twenty attempts to smuggle bombs into the schools, but the charges are serious nevertheless.

The number of summonses has drastically dropped because of the pressure to not overcharge juveniles under the banner of “discipline reform.” In 2017, the police issued just 18 summonses, down from 1,275 in 2012. Many of the incidents are resolved through letting the schools take care of the discipline. The New York Civil Liberties Union says that it is bad policy to criminalize juveniles for unreasonable noise, fighting and obscene language. Critics charge that the misbehavior for which police are called is more major than just being noisy, and the lax policies result is an increasing disorder in the schools.