NCJ Number
197612
Journal
Campus Safety Journal Volume: 10 Issue: 10 Dated: October 2002 Pages: 18-21,36
Editor(s)
Tom Nelson
Date Published
October 2002
Length
5 pages
Annotation
This article reports 10 specific steps and suggestions in preventing future school violence as presented in the Safe School Initiative Study produced in a guide under the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Secret Service.
Abstract
The U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Secret Service released a guide entitled Threat Assessment in Schools: A Guide to Managing Threatening Situations and to Create Safe School Climates. This guide contains the Safe School Initiative study suggesting productive actions that educators, law enforcement officials, and others can pursue in response to the problem of targeted school violence. The findings of the study suggest that some future school attacks may be preventable. Prevention efforts should be focused in two specific areas: (1) developing the capacity to pick up on and evaluate available or knowable information indicating a potential risk and (2) employing the results of these risk evaluations or threat assessments to develop prevention strategies. Ten key findings or specific steps for preventing future violent attacks on schools are presented and include: (1) incidents of targeted violence at school rarely are sudden, impulsive acts; (2) prior to most incidents, other people knew about the attacker’s idea and/or plan to attack; (3) most attackers did not threaten prior to advancing the attack; (4) there is no accurate or useful profile of students who engage in targeted school violence; (5) most attackers engaged in some behavior prior to the incident that caused concern; (6) most attackers had difficulty coping with significant losses or personal failures and considered suicide; (7) many attackers felt bullied, persecuted, or injured by others; (8) most attackers had access to and had used weapons prior to attack; (9) in some cases, other students were involved in the attack in some capacity; and (10) most attacks were stopped by means other than law enforcement intervention and brief were in duration.