LOS ANGELES — A UCLA study found steady and steep decreases in California school violence over 18 years, including fights and reports of guns and other weapons on campus, results that indicate students generally felt safe at school despite nationwide mass school shootings.
The report documented a 56% reduction in physical fights and a 70% reduction in reports of guns being carried onto school campuses while reports of other weapons, such as knives, fell by nearly 70%. Victimization reported by Black and Latino students, which includes instances of being bullied or assaulted, saw larger declines than victimization reported by white students.
The study by UCLA's Luskin School of Public Affairs analyzed data from 2001 through 2019 in the confidential California Healthy Kids Survey. Published late last month in the World Journal of Pediatrics, the survey took in 6.2 million seventh-, ninth- and 11th-graders from more than 3,200 public schools.
