Secondary school children and the experience of robbery: a survey in three south London schools

This article presents selected results from a victimisation survey of secondary school pupils in three very different schools in south London (n=1590). The focus is on the experience of robbery in school and on the journey to and from school; ‘experience’ includes those who were personally ‘robbed’ when they were alone, as well as those who were with others when they were ‘robbed’. The associations between this experience and perceptions of safety and safe behaviours are explored. The inherently problematic nature of this kind of survey methodology with children is highlighted, with reference to other well-known surveys in the United Kingdom. The survey found that overall 21.6 per cent of pupils had experienced a robbery, of whom 7.9 per cent were alone at the time and 13.7 per cent were with a person who was robbed; 3.3 per cent of the whole sample reported that they had been injured. The article concludes that better practical use could be made of such data, especially if it was more routinely collected electronically and used in planning a response at the school level.