Policy

Neighborhood violence has caused a jump in weapons seizures at New York City schools

Students are carrying weapons to protect themselves on the way to school.

Students are afraid after shootings or other incidents happen either at school in the surrounding area.

Students are afraid after shootings or other incidents happen either at school in the surrounding area. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

There is a common refrain that Legal Aid Society attorney Melinda Andra hears from students she works with who have been caught carrying weapons to school: They felt unsafe going to and from school and wanted to protect themselves. That was the case for one girl Andra represented a couple of weeks ago, who faced suspension after bringing pepper spray to school. The girl told Andra that her mother had bought the pepper spray for her after hearing about violence in the community, so that she would be safe while taking the bus to school. Others have expressed similar sentiments.

“We hear them say, ‘Well I’m afraid. I have to get on the subway to get to school and you hear about all of these incidents right?’ Every time there is an incident – I’m thinking of what happened in Nashville (last month) – it increases the fear and anxiety that our young people are feeling throughout the city,” Andra said.

New York City schools Chancellor David Banks recently told the New York City Council that he’s seen “a very serious uptick in violence” close to school grounds. “What’s happened is the number of incidents happening across the street from the school, around the corner,” Banks said during an education budget hearing on March 15. “The kids are telling us they’re bringing these weapons to school … to protect themselves as they’re going to and from school.” The day before Banks addressed the council, three Manhattan schools were forced into lockdown due to a series of nearby shootings.

Recent data from the New York City Police Department suggests an increasing number of students are bringing weapons to school. Between July 1, 2022, and March 12, 2023, the NYPD recovered 4,468 “weapons/dangerous instruments” from schools. That’s a 21% increase from the same eight-month period last year, when the NYPD recovered 3,687 weapons. But it’s not the case that guns are flooding into schools. The vast majority of the seized weapons were knives; only 10 of the more than 4,400 “weapons/dangerous instruments” recovered so far this year were firearms.

School safety in New York City is multifaceted, and what exactly it should mean and look like has long been the subject of fierce debate. For decades, the city has invested in technology like metal detectors, which have primarily been installed in schools with a majority of Black and brown students, and hired thousands of school safety agents – unarmed NYPD employees who monitor building entrances, operate metal detectors and respond to student behavioral issues.

More recently, City Council members have called on the Department of Education to address the root causes of youth violence – the reason that students feel they need to carry weapons to protect themselves. In response, the department has hired more social workers and guidance counselors. It has also explored restorative justice approaches to conflict, which let students collaborate with staff to solve conflicts on their own rather than resorting to punitive measures.

As the Department of Education faces budget cuts, these differing approaches to school safety have been pitted against one another. Republican City Council members and Teamsters Local 237, which represents school safety agents, insist that the city must hire many more school safety agents to patrol schools and confiscate weapons. But much of the council, along with educators and student advocates, want the department to continue investing in restorative justice programs, counseling and other initiatives that address the root causes of youth violence.

A community’s responsibility

Adams launched his own take on restorative justice this school year with Project Pivot, a $9 million initiative that’s now operating in 144 of the city’s roughly 1,600 schools. In March, Adams also announced a sweeping plan aimed at bolstering children and youth’s access to mental health support – something that historically, many schools have struggled to provide due to a lack of resources. A spokesperson for the Department of Education said the city is “focused on continuing to work towards a shift in school discipline” and continuing to prioritize restorative justice in a “separate vertical” from Project Pivot.

This investment in nonpunitive approaches to school safety has coincided with a drop in the number of school safety officers. The number of school safety agents assigned to schools fell more than 20% during the COVID-19 pandemic – a drop that Adams doesn’t intend to fully reverse, according to a report from the Independent Budget Office published earlier this month. As of the end of February, the city employed about 3,900 school safety agents. Adams’ preliminary budget for next fiscal year includes funding for nearly 4,000 agents – a slight increase, but still a significant decline from the roughly 5,000 individuals employed pre-pandemic. Both Adams and the IBO attribute the decline solely to cost-saving measures.

Gregory Floyd, president of Teamsters Local 237, said that the shrinking number of agents has hampered their ability to patrol outside of schools and stop weapons from being taken inside. According to Floyd, the school safety division used to participate in a “safe passage” program with the NYPD in which school safety agents and police officers would escort children from school to the subway, where transit police would take over and monitor them for the rest of their trip.

“Since the pandemic, the school safety (division) doesn’t have the staffing to create this passage,” he said. “I warned the city that the policy of not hiring school safety agents would work until schools open. Let schools open and once you fall behind, you’ll never catch up. That’s the position New York City finds itself in.”

In January, Banks declared a “state of emergency” in response to an increased number of violent incidents near schools. The chancellor said a “much greater degree of intervention” is required to stem the violence. In February, Banks announced that principals would begin meeting weekly with local NYPD leaders to discuss safe passage programs to and from school and how police could best respond to violent incidents. The NYPD also moved to increase the number of youth coordination officers from 350 to 460, according to the New York Post.

Banks has called on parents to help students get to and from school safely. “Give us a little bit of time before the school day begins. Come out at the end of the school day if you can and just be outside,” he said during an interview with PIX11 on March 21. “Work together with the school leadership. Be a block away from the school. Keep your eyes open. Ensuring the safety of our kids is not just the responsibility of the police or the schools – it’s the entire community.”

Through Project Pivot, the city has partnered with community organizations to deploy violence interruption programs, mentorship, recreational activities and counseling to students. In addition to educational services, organizations like Elite Learners Inc. also provide safe passage programs to students in the mornings and afternoons.

Camara Jackson, founder of Elite Learners Inc., said the group stations violence interrupters and other trusted messengers around school perimeters to prevent fights and robberies, and mediate conflicts in the morning and afternoon. According to Jackson, the work has already prevented many violent incidents from happening, even saving lives. “It’s been rewarding work, and we’ve seen a change. I have attendance rates that are doubling now because the kids want to come to school because they know their mentors are there during the day. They know they are safe coming home, and I’ve been able to alleviate issues with parents and families,” Jackson said.

Contrasting views

“We know what actually drives violence and crime and shootings, it’s poverty,” said Dana Rand, the director of social work and program engagement at the violence interrupter program We Build the Block. “It’s not like these kids are inherently violent or criminal, it’s that they are so deprived. If we want to make a true investment in safety and get to a place where kids don’t shoot each other anymore, it really is getting them and their families the things they need.”

Council Member Rita Joseph, a former teacher who is now chair of the Education Committee, takes a similar view. She believes that the city must take a “holistic approach” to school safety, which means focusing both on big initiatives like expanding restorative justice programming and the number of counselors in schools, as well as smaller details like paint, lighting, fencing and “cafeteria enhancements” that at first glance might not make a difference, but together create a more welcoming space for kids. “My goal as a forever educator is to make schools a utopia. Despite what’s going on as the child enters through the door, this should be the safest place, the most ideal palace for them to learn, to grow, and to thrive,” she said. “Environment determines a lot.”

Joseph said that she does not want school safety agents – most of whom are women of color – to lose their jobs, but she does want them to dress and act less like police officers. She’s urged the city to retrain them in restorative justice and de-escalation tactics geared towards young people, so that they can play a different role in schools.

Joseph’s Republican colleagues want to double down on policing. When the Common Sense Caucus – a group primarily composed of Republican council members – met with Banks last month, they urged him to keep school safety agents in schools and implement a new magnetic locking system on the front doors of schools. The Panel for Education Policy quietly approved a $43 million contract for that system in February.

“We emphasized how we need to take an all-hands approach to keeping our children safe while they are in school, and while they are traveling to and from school – whether that means ensuring we have an adequate number of school safety agents, locking front doors and employing a camera and magnetic buzzer system, or making sure we have the proper protocols and NYPD available at school dismissals,” Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli said in a statement.

Borelli has also blamed the state’s “Raise the Age” law, which prevents teenagers from being charged as adults for most crimes, for the increase in students carrying weapons. Floyd, the head of the school safety union, said that young people have been taking advantage of the Raise the Age law, which ensures “they don’t really get punished” even if they are caught with a weapon.

But Rand said that such complaints miss the point. “The question should not be how do we lock them all up? How do we roll back Raise the Age?” she said. “The question should be why is it in the city of New York, do kids feel so unsafe in their neighborhood that they are carrying guns in the first place and feel like they have to take them to school?”

Schools as a refuge 

Nile, a Brooklyn high school senior who asked only to be identified by his first name, is one of several students from the Urban Youth Collaborative who testified in front of the City Council last month, imploring members to divest funding for school safety agents into hiring more restorative justice coordinators, social workers and counselors.

Like the rest of his peers, Nile follows a similar routine each time he enters school. Stepping up to the security checkpoint, he’ll remove his bag and belongings, take off his belt and any keys looped around his neck, then step through the metal detector as school safety agents look on. Entering school can be intimidating, he said.

“If I were to see a school safety officer and a cop walking down the street, I would not be able to depict the difference,” he said. “As you stay longer at the school you can get to know them and you start to learn about their character, but overall it’s not really pleasant to see school safety officers the moment you walk in the building.”

Part of the anxiety of going through scanners, he said, comes from the fact that school safety agents sometimes view daily items like nail clippers, tweezers, scissors and other common objects as potential weapons. He was taken to the school safety agents’ office for questioning after the metal detector was triggered by a laser pointer he used to play with his cat and accidentally left in his backpack. The agents later sent a report to the NYPD about what they found.

“What they call a weapon is also extremely suspect,” said Johanna Miller, director of the New York Civil Liberties Union’s Education Policy Center. “We have tons and tons of anecdotal evidence that silverware in a kid’s lunch box, or a keychain that’s like big, heavy or a weird shape, or a belt buckle are the type of things they call weapons and get confiscated all the time at metal detectors.”

According to the NYPD, the 4,468 weapons confiscated from students so far this school year include 10 firearms, 14 BB guns, 236 Taser/stun guns, 496 box cutters/razors, 1,799 knives and 1,913 ”other weapons.”

Much will be worked out between now and when school budgets are finalized for next school year. Battles over program funding will be waged. Youth violence will probably be politicized. Miller said that throughout all this, it’s all the more important that the city ensures schools are a place where students can seek support in an environment “safe from the outside world.” She believes students see schools as a refuge and the city should lean into that instead of making buildings feel like a place of punishment.

“The school is a closed community,” Miller said. “It should be much easier to create that type of culture than it is in even the neighborhood or in the whole city where there’s so many other variables.”

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.