Decline of crime in schools is perhaps a welcome side-effect of the quakes

Christchurch schools have benefited from falling crime rates over the last three years. The police dealt with 1118 reported crimes in schools in 2009-10, dropping to a significantly lower 800 in 2011-12.

The most significant falls, unsurprisingly, have been in the largest categories of the various crimes committed in and around schools.

The number of burglaries in schools was recorded at 172 in 2009-10, then rose slightly to 197 in 2010-11, before dropping markedly to 109 in 2011-12. The number of thefts at schools declined from 458 to 343 to 321 during the same years.

Property damage and pollution – and vandalism is sometimes a real drain on school budgets – dropped from 293 incidents to 236 to 185. Acts likely to cause injury dropped to 56, compared with 65 and 66 during the previous two years.

Public-order breaches and serious offences involving weapons or explosives increased, as did cases of robbery and extortion, but such incidents were at thankfully low levels – so low, in fact, that no definite trends could be discerned.

The small number of sexual offences (10 in 2011-12) and illicit drug offences (19) were relatively steady.

It is hard to fathom why over- all crime figures in schools have fallen so markedly. The time frame under review coincides with just before the earthquake sequence started on September 4, 2010, and the two years since, so it is possible that the quake disruption, counter-intuitively, has had some sort of calming effect on the behaviour of pupils and those who would come on to school property to commit crime.

Thousands of students spent much of 2011 site-sharing with other schools and faced longer commutes to less convenient sites. It is hard to put yourself into the mindset of a would-be school burglar or vandal, but perhaps it is simply harder to steal from or graffiti a school where you feel like a guest. Or perhaps there is less incentive to vandalise a school building which has already been munted by the quakes.

Who knows? This is just conjecture, but the reduction of crime in schools echoed reduced crime rates in wider society after the quakes.

The National Certificate of Educational Achievement figures for 2011 (2012’s are not yet available) also produced the opposite result of what might have been expected. Students responded to a disruptive year by lifting their collective performance in class and at examination time. Canterbury pupils also scored better than the national average.

Putting the trends together, we can see that, at least temporarily, schools have become places with less pilfering, less property damage, fewer burglaries and better-performing students.

Perhaps the schools are benefiting from an overall rise in community spirit evident since the earthquakes began, and maybe a newfound respect for the roles that schools play in times of crisis.

In the context of the Government education review, schools have more than once been described as the ‘‘glue’’ that holds communities together, both by providing a neighbourhood focal point, and in the support that they have provided for the children.

As Christchurch responded to the earthquakes, maybe – just maybe – one result has been more respect for schools and a greater determination by many students to knuckle down to the task at hand.

It remains to be seen whether the improved statistics are anything more than a temporary phenomenon. If they are, let’s appreciate them while we can. And if the crime statistics stay lower over time, we can celebrate that good things do come out of difficult times.

In the meantime, parliamen- tarians would do well to heed the concerns of principals about proposed changes to the Education Act which would restrict schools’ power to search students looking for material such as weapons or drugs. The changes may also mean drugs dogs will not be brought into schools when students are present.

The bill requires students to produce and surrender dangerous items, but it seems weighted in favour of stopping ‘‘invasive’’ searches by school staff. MPs will need to take care that they are not allowing the rights of the individual to take precedence over the safety of the wider school community.