Crime Rates in North Carolina Schools Continue to Decline
For the third consecutive year, North Carolina schools have reported a drop in crime rates, according to new statistics from the state Department of Public Instruction. The latest figures show a 6.1% decrease in school-related crimes, totaling 11,470 incidents last year, with an 8% reduction in the rate of incidents per 1,000 students, now at 7.43.
While the overall crime rate is down, incidents categorized as “violent” increased slightly from 250 to 302 cases, yet these remain infrequent, standing at a rate of 0.2 per 1,000 students and comprising just 2.6% of all recorded incidents.
Michael Maher, the Chief Accountability Officer at DPI, emphasized that crime is not system-wide but rather concentrated in fewer schools and among certain students. He noted that approximately 78% of schools reported between zero and five incidents. A small segment of the student population, 9,966 out of nearly 1.5 million, accounted for the total incidents, indicating that over 99% of students were uninvolved in any violent or reportable offenses.
“It’s not a picture of system-wide disorder, it’s a picture of concentration,” Maher explained to the state Board of Education. “It’s concentrated in specific grades, it’s concentrated in key transition years and in students who are already facing multiple overlapping challenges.”
Significant declines were observed in weapon possession incidents, with a 20% drop overall and a 34% reduction in firearm possessions. However, drug-related incidents saw a slight increase and now represent about 60% of all reported cases.
“So while every incident matters, the data show that severe violence is rare, and the most common challenges schools are managing are behavioral and substance-related — not widespread physical harm,” stated Maher. “So any policy, procedure or programmatic recommendation we make should be proportional to that evidence.”
Student subgroups exhibiting higher incident rates include those with disabilities, Black students, economically disadvantaged students, and male students. Maher pointed out that these patterns are descriptive rather than causal, aligning with trends seen in other educational outcomes such as attendance and academic performance.
“I want to be clear: These are descriptive patterns, they are not causal explanations. The same pattern shows up across multiple education outcomes, including attendance, course and test performance and dropout — not just discipline,” Maher said. “That tells us that discipline is not a standalone issue. Effective solutions need to connect attendance, behavior, academic support and student services.”
Despite ongoing disparities among these groups, improvements have been noted with significant reductions in incident numbers this year. Maher proposed several recommendations based on the findings, including a focus on supporting students transitioning from middle to high school.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools also reported fewer crimes, decreasing from 1,414 to 1,267 incidents, and a lowered crime rate from 10.1 to 8.8 per 1,000 students.
