Violence has turned into an issue that every school has to face, but new statistics show that violence on campuses has drastically declined over the past decade. Schools across the country have been reporting fewer incidents of violence every year and this decrease can be traced to the amount of security and new procedures adopted towards violence.

School violence has many solutions, but one that seems the most effective has been the national increase in security hired each year. In many schools, security outnumbers counselors and fewer students are reporting physicality.

According to a 2015 survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 7.8% of students, from grades 9-12, had been in a physical fight on school property, within the last 12 months of the survey. The study also reported that 20.2% of students had been bullied on school property and another 15.5% reported being a victim of online bullying.

While those numbers may seem high, they were much higher only a decade ago. In 2008, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that 31% of students, grades 9-12, had been in a physical fight within the last 12 months of the survey.

After a decade of schools doing the most to prevent violence, the numbers are the lowest they’ve been in a long time.

In response to the statistics from ten years ago school administrators began taking more steps towards increasing security and building a safer school environment by installing metal detectors and hiring more security guards.

To counteract the rapid increase of security, some schools have looked to increase the number of school counselors rather than security guards. According to the Department of Education, New York City hired 250 counselors, in 2017, for their schools and plan on hiring more.

According to The Huffington Post article entitled “These School Districts Have More Security Guards Than Counselors,” school security officers outnumber counselors in four of the ten largest public-school districts in the country – including three of the top five largest.

Schools have also adopted many new social-reform systems, such as the restorative-justice model that highlights bringing the students involved in a physical altercation and having them discuss their differences. This approach to fighting and other forms of violence has done its job.

Many policies toward punishments over fighting have also taken a turn toward spectators. Schools will now suspend students who film fights along with the students involved. Video recordings of fights are often shared among students and this distribution jeopardizes the privacy of the students involved and makes the school look bad as a whole.

These new methods to approach school violence have proven successful in lowering the annual numbers. Schools of all grade levels are actively trying to create a safer and more student friendly environment so that violence between students becomes a thing of the past.