New report: Crime down in city schools

A new report released Tuesday claims school crime in the Bronx and around the city has declined since last year. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and School Chancellor Joel Klein

News 12 Staff

Aug 5, 2008, 11:27 PM

Updated 5,968 days ago

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A new report released Tuesday claims school crime in the Bronx and around the city has declined since last year. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and School Chancellor Joel Klein asserted that major felony crime has dropped by more than 34 percent in city schools since Mayor Bloomberg came into office in 2002.Over the past year, major felony crimes have dropped by 11 percent, from 1,166 incidents reported last year to 1,042 incidents this year.Violent incidents have taken a downturn as well, declining by 10 percent compared to the 2006-2007 school year. The mayor says school safety is a key factor in achieving educational success. ?The safer and more orderly a school is, as you know, the more the students learn,? Mayor Bloomberg says. ?And that's why school safety really has been a major priority of our administration.?City officials were also pleased about the drop in major crime instances in the city?s nine impact schools, which had the highest level of violence reported by the police and the department of education. The number of incidents in these schools dropped from 87 to 37 since the beginning of the impact school program.Officials attribute the plummeting crime in schools to the combined effort by police, school, safety agents, teachers and administrators.