Managing the School-Violence Incident: Before it Happens, and After

• NCJ Number: 193852
• Journal: Sheriff Volume: 54 Issue: 2 Dated: March/April 2002 Pages: 26-28
• Author(s): Rick SyWassink
• Date Published: 2002
• Length: 3 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article examines the need for all entities in a community to cooperate in dealing with school violence.

Abstract

Planning for and responding to a school violence incident is not just a law enforcement or emergency responder responsibility, it is a community-wide responsibility. This includes schools, emergency services, and the community at-large. The first step in addressing the issue of school violence and making this issue a community-wide one is arranging a meeting of the top-level representatives from the school and the top law enforcement officials. The meeting develops a timetable for work that needs to be completed to develop a school-violence plan. Another topic that needs to be addressed at this time is the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the sheriff’s office and the schools. Once the groups have been organized, the creation of the violence-response plan can begin. An effective plan includes descriptions of early warning signs of juveniles at risk, effective prevention practices, intervention strategies, and the actual crisis intervention plan, which describes the crisis response and what needs to be done during the aftermath of the incident. Following the process prescribed by the Comprehensive Emergency Management for Schools (CEMPS), the response plan includes identifying and mitigating the hazard, implementing and then evaluating the plan, the recovery process, and linking to the greater community. Another important issue is who is in charge at the scene of an incident. A survey indicates that the best answer to this question can be found in the Incident Command System (ICS), which is used by emergency medical and firefighting services. During the ICS planning phase, the school will have developed its own ICS, which will be put into effect before the arrival of emergency first responders. Once the ICS command post is established, the ICS for the school joins with the emergency responders, which creates a unified command system.