Department of Justice and National School Safety Board Statistics:

There are currently over 130,000 schools serving 50 million students in this country. 

Between 1997 and 2001, there were approximately 1.3 million reports where teachers were victims to nonfatal crimes at school.  On average, in each year from 1997-2001, about 21 out of every 1,000 teachers were victims of violent crime at school, and 3 out of every 1,000 were victims of serious violent crime (i.e., rape, sexual assault, robbery and aggravated assault.  (These numbers are estimated to be under-reported 20-80%)

•        Students between the ages of 12 and 18 were victims of about 764,000 violent crimes annually (These numbers are estimated to be under-reported 20-80%)

•        13% of 9th graders reported that they were threatened or injured with a weapon on school property.      

•        Street gangs were reported present on school premises by 29% of students living in urban areas, 18% of students living in suburban areas, and 13% of students living in rural areas.

•        6.1% of students nationwide have carried a weapon (e.g., a gun, knife, or club) on school property one or more times during the 30 days prior to the survey. During the 12 months preceding the survey, 9.2% of the students had been threatened or injured with such a weapon on school property one or more times.

•        Each day, approximately 160,000 K-12 students don’t attend school because they are afraid.

•        46% of students said they were hit, kicked, shoved, or tripped at least once in the previous month, and 18 percent had experienced this five or more times.

•        One in fourteen students carries a weapon to school one or more days each month.

•        10% of traditional (non-special education) teachers reported being threatened with injury during a 12 month period.  

•        Nearly one in 10 high school students reported being threatened or injured with a weapon on school property during the preceding 12 months.  

•        Over 88% of victimizations that occurred at school against 12-18 year olds were not reported to the police.  

•        Of the 3,657 expulsions from bringing a firearm to school almost half were students in high school, 28 % were middle school and 24% were elementary school. 

Special Education

The data that exists puts the number of special education students around 14% of the total student population.  This segment of students is the most rapidly growing segment and it is projected that special education students will soon represent 25% of the student population.  


With respect to special education students and school violence, data shows that special education students committed threats at a significantly higher annual rate (33/1000 students) than regular education students (6.9/1000 students) and made more substantive threats (39.8%) than students in regular education (20%).  Students classified as Emotionally Disturbed (ED) made the highest threat rates and the most serious threats.  Students in special education who made threats also committed significantly more infractions involving violent acts.  Research is showing that while special education students represent approximately 14% of the school population, they are the source of 38-43% of the violent incidents.

New York Audit:

In real numbers, no one really knows the extent of the threat in terms of school violence.  In 2006 an audit of 17 high schools was conducted by former NYS Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi found that at least one third of violent incidents documented in school records were not reported.  The Hevesi Report cited approximately 7,357 violent and disruptive incidents at 17 NY high schools in one year.  

Synopsis:

The 200 or so incidences of potentially abusive uses of seclusion and restraint documented in NDRN’s Report span over at least a decade long period and include non-school incidents.  These cases were reported by 57 protection and advocacy network offices presumably located across the country.

The Report gives examples of improper use of restraint and seclusion, but fails to give actual statistics.  Most teachers are not in the classroom to abuse children.  The Report also fails to integrate the use of restraint and seclusion with the overall issue of how to keep children safe in what is an unsafe world.

We fully support and promote the use of positive support interventions whenever possible.  That said, it is unrealistic for advocates or Congress to expect that every incident can be managed with positive behavior intervention.  Positive behavior support alone is not an appropriate intervention (see CMS restraint regulations public comment section) at the precise moment that a student is placing himself or herself at a real and substantial risk of injury to self or others.  

- For instance, if your child was about to cross a street into oncoming traffic, or place their hand on a hot stove, you would stop them. If your child was hurting themselves by scratching or head banging, you would stop them from continuing to hurt themselves.

- If you have your own child in an educational setting and another child physically attacks your child, regardless of motive, what would you think about a teacher or aide who decides to offer 'positive behavior support' instead of saving your child from getting beaten?

-Further, what if the student committing the beating on your son or daughter can only be restrained effectively with a safely designed prone hold because nothing else within the realm of passive restraint works?

-In fact it is precisely because  schools and other facilities are taking away the spectrum of tools that teachers and staff can use to therapeutically intervene, that more, not less, security and intervention is being called for. Administrators and teachers need to be given the spectrum of tools necessary to do their jobs in order to maintain a safe environment.  

It is only by putting the examples cited in NDRN's Report into context that the scope of the overall issue of school violence, behavior management and the need for everyone's safety can be measured.

Supine Restraint:

The supine restraint option that NDRN offers is not as safe or as therapeutic as prone restraint.

• Clients have complained about supine restraint feeling more, not less, vulnerable;
• Students are forced to be eye-to-eye with the person that is restraining them;
• Panic reactions occur more frequently and children are not given space or privacy to regain control of themselves;
• Teachers and other staff are less likely to intervene if they can only use supine restraint because they are constantly subjected to being spit upon or bitten.
• In agencies forced to use supine restraint children that were once able to be managed are excluded from programs, holding times are longer, and assaults and injuries go up for both student and staff.

In a comment submitted in response to Pennsylvania DPW attempt to ban prone restraint, Scott Martin, Commissioner of Lancaster County writes:

“Being in the supine position enables them [children] to be more successful in punching, scratching, eye-gouging, pulling hair, biting and spitting. . . . Unlike the prone position, the supine gives full leg striking ability which has led to many serious injuries to staff members. . . .When a child is placed in the prone position, they are limited in their ability to further assault. When you place them supine, you give them every opportunity to do so.”

Prone restraint simply means that the subject of the restraint is in a face down position. It is not the name of a particular restraint technique as there are many ways to restrain someone face down. All prone holding methods are not unsafe, just as all standing, seated or face up holding methods are not safe.

Face up or face down, the real issue is restraint methods that restrict breathing and not paying complete attention to the physical and emotional well being of the person being restrained during the entire time they are being restrained. No restraint training program teaches prone restraint where staff is placing weight on the child’s back or chest.

5th and 14th Amendments: Equal Protection Under the Law: