School Crime Supplement (SCS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)

The School Crime Supplement (SCS) is part of the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which is led by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) at the U.S. Department of Justice. NCES collaborates with BJS to survey students ages 12 to 18 years old in grades 6 through 12 about crime and safety at school and in the surrounding neighborhood.

The SCS asks students about topics such as:

• Fighting, bullying, and hate-related behavior
• Prevalence of guns and weapons
• Gangs at school
• Availability of alcohol and drugs at school
• Fear and avoidance behaviors

The SCS was first conducted in 1989, followed by administrations in 1995 and 1999, and was conducted every other year thereafter, from 2001 to 2019. Data collection was postponed during the COVID-19 pandemic and resumed in 2022. The next collection of SCS is scheduled for 2025.

NCES maintains a library of publications featuring the SCS, the SCS questionnaires, and the SCS public-use datasets.