NCJ Number
230350
Date Published
April 2010
Length
40 pages
Annotation
This report examines incidences of violence at institutions of higher education.
Abstract
The April 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech brought to the forefront the incidence of violence on college and university campuses nationwide. Meetings were held with college and university representatives at the local, State, and Federal levels to examine the issues raised by this event. In June of 2007, the Report to the President on Issues Raised by the Virginia Tech Tragedy was issued and included several recommendations. One of these recommendations was for the U.S. Department of Education in collaboration with the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Department of Justice, to explore the prevalence of targeted violence at institutions of higher education (IHEs), to examine who the perpetrators were, and to examine whether they were affiliated with the affected IHEs. This report is a result of the collaborative work between these three agencies and includes background information on the IHE community and IHE campus crime, a discussion of the definition and inclusion criteria for these incidents, the findings that resulted from a review of these incidences, and qualitative observations about the attacks. The qualitative observations looked at what factors motivated or triggered the attack, how the target selection compared with the actual victims, what pre-incident behaviors were directed toward the targets, and whether others were aware of the problem behaviors prior to the incidents. General observations and conclusions from the review are also discussed. Tables, figures, and appendixes