OVERVIEW OF VANDALISM COSTS

Records of vandalism costs provide a good illustration of the inability or failure of school systems to gather long term data in certain areas. Among the difficulties encountered in estimating costs of vandalism are the inabilities to determine which repairs are necessitated by destructive acts, whether labor costs are included, the difference between replacement costs versus original costs, and a lack of consistent and precise reporting procedures.

As illustrated by Table 5, long term data are frequently unavailable and comparability among districts is difficult due to varying classifications of vandalism.

OVERVIEW OF SECURITY PERSONNEL AND EQUIPMENT

The number and type of security personnel varies widely from city to city (see Table 6). Some of these officers are armed, others are not. Some wear uniforms, others do not. The basic equipment used for security purposes is alarm systems, and screening devices of various kinds.

Analysis of members of security personnel and various categories of criminal incidents show no significant correlation between size of security force and numbers of incidents. We did, however, find that the type of security forceat least in two cities-had a direct effect in reducing the incidence in certain categories of criminal behavior. Atlanta, for example, has only eighteen security personnel including supervisors. Yet, the incidence of school violence and vandalism is among the lowest of the cities surveyed. A similar situation prevails in

Baltimore.

OVERVIEW OF SUSPENSION AND EXPULSION DATA

When the size of each district is taken into account, it is possible to gauge e rate of suspensions among districts. This kind of analysis shows the highest tes of suspension occurring in Philadelphia, East Orange and Plainfield. The west rates of suspension were found in Atlanta, Detroit, Baltimore and Berkeley ee figure 11).

The most frequent reasons for suspensions are fighting among students, truancy, d "gross misbehavior" (see Table 7). A large percentage of suspensions (about to 11⁄2 in most cities) fall into categories where teacher judgment is the primary terminant of suspension (see Table 8).