Mayor de Blasio announced the expansion of a pair of programs to keep students out of city jails on Monday, along with the publication of new data showing fewer arrests in city schools.
The city will expand a program that allows cops to give teens warnings rather than summonses for small amounts of marijuana and disorderly conduct this spring, from 37 schools to 71, de Blasio said.
He also said the city will also expand a program that gives kids free legal advice to any public school that requests it.
That program had been in operation in a handful of Bronx schools and had shown good results, as did the warning program, city officials said.
“We are improving student behavior while keeping our teens out of trouble,” de Blasio said. “Crime is at an all-time low and graduation is at an all-time high.”
School safety data published Monday showed that the number of arrests for school-based incidents in the city fell to 373 in the fourth quarter of 2016, compared with 430 in the second quarter of the year and 436 in the first quarter of the year.
Year-to-year comparisons were impossible since this is the first year the city has tallied the data in this fashion.
The statistics are promising, but critics have accused de Blasio of cooking the books on crime in city schools.
A 2016 analysis by the pro-charter lobbying group Families for Excellent Schools showed the number of assaults in city schools rose 40% from the 2013-14 school year to the 2014-15 school year.
That same analysis showed smaller increases in weapons seizures and drug cases.
Likewise, a 2015 audit by state Controller Thomas DiNapoli found the city Education Department failed to report hundreds of violent incidents at public schools.
And a state tally of violent and disruptive incidents in city schools found fewer incidents overall in the 2015-16 school year compared to the previous year, but an uptick in serious incidents such as forcible sex and assault with serious physical injury.
Local 237 President Gregory Floyd, whose union represents the school safety agents, said the mayor is cherry-picking his stats.
“It’s very simple,” said Floyd. “He’s fudging the numbers.”
