The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation released two new studies Thursday, detailing the volume and nature of crime on school campuses and crime identified as having a domestic violence nexus. Both studies utilize data from the Tennessee Incident Based Reporting System (TIBRS).

The study focused on schools for children in K thru 12th grades.

Among the findings of ‘School Crime 2020’:

From 2018 to 2020, 24,403 crimes were reported by the state’s law enforcement agencies with a location code of ‘School-Elementary/Secondary.’

The overall number of reported offenses decreased by 59.0%, from 2018 to 2020, largely attributable to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on reported school crimes in 2020. The TBI’s Statistical Analysis Center has been maintaining a watchful eye on the reported crime rates, since the start of the pandemic, and continues to do so.

Simple Assault was the most frequently reported offense, at 35.1%.

The month of February had the highest frequency of school crime being reported most crime was reported between 12 noon and 2:59PM.

The TBI also found that Wednesday happened to be the most frequently reported day of the week for crime to occur in schools. Previous to the COVID Pandemic, Thursday and Friday were the two weekdays that saw the highest number of crimes being reported within our school systems. 

Females accounted for 52.7% of the total victims of crime in schools and males were reported to be the offender 60.3% of the time. Males aged 14 and 15 were the most commonly reported offender groups (27.7%) among school students followed by males aged 16 and 17 (26.4%).

As for race, white students accounted for 42.3% of offender groups and black students accounted for 43.4% of offender groups.

Among the findings of ‘Domestic Violence 2020’:

A total of 69,385 offenses were flagged as domestic-related in 2020. Of those, 45,854 were reported as Simple Assault.

The overall number of domestic-related offenses decreased by 2.6% from 2019 to 2020.

Data on victim-to-offender relationship revealed that ‘Boyfriend/Girlfriend’ was the most frequently reported relationship type for domestic-related offenses.

“The issue of domestic violence is by no means a novel problem in American society,” said TBI Director David Rausch. “The persistence of domestic violence and the large number of related incidents reported to law enforcement necessitate continued awareness about this issue.”

 

Both reports are now available for further review and download on the TBI’s website:  https://www.tn.gov/tbi/divisions/cjis-division/recent-publications.html.