School Security Measures, School Environment, and Avoidance Behaviors

ABSTRACT

Important aspects of the school context include the presence of physical security measures, especially those that focus on the monitoring and control of students such as security guards and security cameras, and social school environment factors, such as adult support and perceived fairness. Using data from the 2015 National Crime Victimization Survey – School Crime Supplement, the current study explored the relationships between school security measures in schools, school social environment factors, and student fear of crime and avoidance behavior. The results indicate that the school security measures and school social environment are associated with students’ fear of crime and avoidance, and they suggest that schools need to reconsider the use of security measures and to focus on fair development and implementation of school rules instead.

KEYWORDS:

• Fear of crime/perceived risk
• victimization
• school violence

Acknowledgments

The current paper uses data from the National Victimization Survey: School Crime Supplement (NCVS-SCS). Detail information about the NCVS-SCS data can be found on the ICPSR website (https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/studies/36354).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Following Brown (2009), we did not include a measure of Hispanic ethnicity considered separately from race, as this is argued to produce misleading results by combining all non-Hispanic groups (which are not similarly situated) into one and comparing them to Hispanics. The results of supplemental bivariate models (available upon request) showed that Hispanic and non-Hispanic students did not differ on fear of crime or avoidance behavior.

2. We examined the bivariate effects of separate types of security measures in supplemental analyses (available upon request). Fear of crime was higher in schools with security guards and schools that require students to wear identification. Avoidance behavior was more likely in schools with security guards.