Could school be the most dangerous place for youth?

 Having considered the statistics, it seems clear that school is likely the most dangerous place a young person will regularly go. Let's begin by looking at some of these statistics, considering what exactly they mean, and finish up by thinking about why the statistics look the way they do. 

This article states "According to a survey conducted by Mission Research for CBC News, more than one-third of students between the ages of 14 and 21 say they were physically assaulted at least once before reaching high school." Over one third BEFORE high school. Considering that high school (arguably) has the most intense social pressure a young student will face in their school life, it's particularly surprising that so many assaults are happening before high school. The same article also says "In high school, one in five boys surveyed say they were threatened with a weapon." One fifth of the male high school population has apparently had their life seriously threatened. I'm not certain on the statistics, but I'd suspect that the number of boys threatened inside of school is much, much higher than the number threatened outside of school. 

While boys are mostly facing issues with assault in school, the girls get to deal with sexual assault. This article here says that 15% of female students have been sexually assaulted. 15%. While these statistics will vary from school to school, for the sake of consideration let's take that 15% as the average and look at how many people worldwide may have been sexually assaulted. According to this website here, there are ~1,008,023 females between the ages of 15-19. 15% of that number is 151,203. Now obviously statistics will vary, and not all people in this age demographic will even be attending school, but that number is still going to be very high considering that we're only looking at sexual assaults by school peers.

So we know now that statistically, a lot of crime is taking place between school peers. Let's think about why these crimes are happening in schools. Firstly, students spend lot of their time at school. I believe it's fair to suggest that school is one of the only places where a student is likely to have any kind of "social power" that they care about, and so youths who are already likely to commit crimes are willing to commit those crimes for some sort of benefit in their school lives. In addition, it is well known that crimes like assault and sexual assault are way more likely to happen between two people that already know each other. Because young people spend so much of their time at school, it's where they get to know most of the new people they meet. Because students are more likely to know other students, they are probably more likely to commit the aforementioned crimes towards other students than towards strangers or other acquaintances. 

In conclusion, school is dangerous for young people because they spend so much of their time there, and it is arguably the most prevalent social structure in their minds. Because of this, students are more likely to commit crimes against one another for a perceived benefit in their school lives.