Back to Goal 9From Measures and Milestones 2002
p. 34-35, published 2002
Creating an environment where children can achieve their best demands that we ensure their safety and security and encourage them to make life choices that will not impair their full participation in the rewards of learning. Here, public opinion appears to have become significantly more positive in regard to our progress to realizing a goal rated as the seventh most important. This positive shift in public opinion happened even as incidents of school violence continued to occur in schools around the nation and to gain widespread media coverage.
Table 1: Where Citizens Think We Stand
Levels of alcohol and marijuana use among Kentucky teens have varied by gender over the past decade. Episodic heavy drinking among male high school students has remained relatively unchanged over the period analyzed, while episodic drinking among female high school students increased. Nationally, 35 percent of males and 28 percent of females reported drinking five or more drinks in a row in the previous 30 days in 1999. The proportion of females reporting recent marijuana use doubled over this time period, while male usage dropped off between 1997 and 1999 but remained higher than the proportion originally reported in 1993. These estimates compare favorably to national rates of recent marijuana use of 31 percent for males and 23 percent for females in 1999.
Figure 1: Percent of Kentucky High School Students Who Used Alcohol in the Past 30 Days
Figure 2: Percent of Kentucky High School Students Who Used Marijuana in the Past 30 Days
Our understanding and prevention of juvenile crime begins with our awareness of its occurrence. The recent trends indicate relatively stagnant incidents of the more serious and often violent Part I crimes. Other than 1997, Part II crimes, which include drug-related crimes and vandalism, have hovered around 8,500 arrests per year in Kentucky. In 2000, an estimated 2.4 million arrests were made nationally, a 3 percent increase from 1991.
Figure 3: Juvenile Arrests for Part I and Part II Crimes, Kentucky, 1996-1999
In 1998, the Kentucky Center for Safe Schools (CSS) was created to coordinate efforts to create safer, more secure learning environments in Kentucky schools that would permit Kentucky students to achieve success. Efforts include data collection and training. Overall, fewer than 10 percent of Kentucky’s public school students commit a law or board policy violation that results in a reportable disciplinary action; however, the data show a slight increase in suspensions related to each type of violation shown here.
Figure 4: Number of Out-of-School Suspensions by Type of Violation
As schools and communities learn about and better understand these data, it will help them form and implement local efforts to ensure school safety. Expulsions represent another path that schools can use to respond to violations that threaten school safety. Expulsions that result from violations of the law or board policy, including weapons-related violations, have declined over the two-year period for which data are available. The reduction in weapons-related incidents is a particularly encouraging indicator of safer schools.
Figure 5: Number of Expulsions by Type of Violation and Related to Guns, Selected Years
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