Spotlight On: Final Report of the Safe School Initiative

by C. Kevin Morrison1

The school shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, seemed to many to be only the most serious of a series of school attacks in the last half of the 1990s, which included Jonesboro, Arkansas, West Paducah, Kentucky, and Springfield, Oregon, among others. It is many juvenile court prosecutors’ worst nightmare that they will fail to file charges or otherwise intervene with a troubled young person, only to have him go into his school or some other place and commit atrocious acts of violence. Clearly juvenile prosecutors, law enforcement officers, and school officials would greatly benefit from a reliable method of identifying youth who present a risk of serious violent behavior in schools.

To that end, the U.S. Department of Education teamed with the U.S. Secret Service2 to sponsor the “Safe School Initiative,” a research project with the goal of answering two questions: “Could we have known that these attacks were being planned?” and “What can be done to prevent future attacks from occurring?” The Safe School Initiative recently issued its Final Report and a companion work, a guide to establishing and implementing a school threat assessment program.3

The Safe School Initiative identified and studied incidents of “targeted violence,” a term borrowed from the Secret Service vocabulary, which was defined in the Safe School Initiative as incidents in which “(i) a current student or recent former student attacked someone at his or her school with lethal means...; and (ii) where the student attacker purposefully chose his or her school as the location of the attack,” as distinguished from violent incidents in which the school was “a site of opportunity.”4 Using that definition the Safe School Initiative researchers identified 37 incidents in 28 states involving 41 perpetrators dating back to 1974. The study relied on primary source materials on the incidents, including law enforcement, school, court, and mental health records, and on personal interviews with ten of the perpetrators.

The study found that most perpetrators shared several characteristics, including the following:5

• All of the perpetrators were boys, most were between 13 and 18 years old (85%), three-quarters were white, and most came from two-parent families (63%).
  
  
• Few of the perpetrators were failing or doing poorly in school, and most of the perpetrators had never or only rarely been in trouble at school.
  
  
• Only about a third had no friends or were characterized by themselves or others as “loners.”
  
  
• Almost all of the attackers had experienced some sort of significant loss prior to the attack, including a personal failure or loss of status (66%), the loss of a loved one or a significant relationship (51%), or a major illness (15%).
  
  
• A sizeable majority felt persecuted or bullied at school (71%).
  
  
• A majority of the perpetrators had a documented history of depression or desperate feelings (68%); even more had a history of suicide attempts or thoughts (78%).
  
  
• Most had an interest in violent media of one kind or another (59%).
  

While those similarities among the perpetrators were significant, they did not necessarily distinguish the perpetrators from other, non-threatening students. Hence, the Safe School Initiative concluded, “there is no useful ‘profile’ of students who engaged in targeted school violence.” Instead, the Safe School Initiative researchers found that similarities in behavior among the 41 perpetrators were more useful than any demographic profile in assessing the risk of future attacks. Most importantly, almost none of the attacks were sudden, impulsive acts; rather, almost all of the attackers exhibited evidence that they were about to commit their attacks.

As a result, the Safe School Initiative found the common behaviors among the attackers, such as the following, to be more probative of the risk of future attacks:

• In almost all incidents, some other person—usually friends, schoolmates, or siblings—knew about the attacker’s intentions or plans. That knowledge, however, rarely made its way to an adult who could act on it prior to the incident.
  
  
• In nearly half the cases, the attacker was assisted or influenced by other students. For example, in one case, after the attacker confided to his friend an intention to bring a gun to school to scare his target, his friend convinced him his plan would be ineffective unless he actually shot the gun.
  
  
• Most of the attackers did not directly threaten their intended target prior to the violent attack. As a result, prevention plans that target students who articulate specific threats will likely miss the potential perpetrator of targeted violence.
  
  
• Most of the attackers engaged in some behavior prior to the incident that caused concern to family, friends, teachers, or some other person, such as efforts to obtain guns, comments about an interest in killing other students, or writings on themes of homicide and suicide.
  
  
• Most attackers had access to and had used weapons prior to the attack. Nearly one-third had a known history of weapon use, including knives, guns, and bombs.6
  

The findings of the Safe School Initiative led to the publication of a second volume, the Threat Assessment Guide.7 In that Guide, the researchers apply the findings in the Final Report to make specific recommendations for devising and implementing a threat assessment and management plan in individual schools. According to the Threat Assessment Guide, an important first step to preventing targeted school violence is to create a “climate of school safety.” The two primary components of that climate are an intolerance of teasing and bullying in the school, and the establishment of an environment in which students feel free to “break the code of silence” and inform school or law enforcement officials or other adults when they have information about another student behaving unusually or planning violence.

The Threat Assessment Guide suggests viewing the threat assessment process as a continuum. At one end is the “threat assessment inquiry”—an initial inquiry undertaken by school officials—which leads, when warranted, to a “threat assessment investigation”—a more comprehensive investigation undertaken by law enforcement officers—at the other end.8 The primary objective of each part of the assessment is to determine whether a particular student actually poses a threat of targeted school violence, as opposed to simply making a threat to a particular teacher, student, or administrator. If the threat assessment inquiry determines that a student may be considering or preparing for an attack at the school, the Threat Assessment Guide recommends turning the matter over to law enforcement for actual investigation into whether any laws have been violated, and whether further action, such as juvenile prosecution, is warranted.

While there are many ways to implement a threat assessment process, one crucial element is the cooperation of all interested parties, including not only school and police officials, but also juvenile court prosecutors and other community leaders. Most cases where a student has formulated a plan to attack his school, and has taken steps toward implementing that plan sufficient to attract the attention of school and law enforcement officials, will eventually end up on the juvenile prosecutor’s desk. How that matter is handled at the assessment and investigation stage, and at the juvenile prosecution stage, will have a significant impact on school safety.

The Safe School Initiative has contributed significantly to the understanding of targeted school violence. Although those incidents are rare, when they do occur, they are devastating to a community. The Threat Assessment Guide published by the Safe School Initiative provides valuable guidance for juvenile prosecutors, law enforcement, and school officials in designing and implementing a school threat assessment plan.

1 Senior Attorney, American Prosecutors Research Institute.

2 The Secret Service was chosen to assist in this effort because of its expertise in the study and prevention of “targeted violence.” The Secret Service had created the National Threat Assessment Center to implement the findings of its Exceptional Case Study Project, a five-year study of the behavior of successful and would-be assassins of public officials and prominent individuals. Through that study the Secret Service had amassed a significant body of knowledge on the motivations and behaviors of persons who pose threats to specific targets.

3 Brian Vossekuil, et al., The Final Report and Findings of the Safe School Initiative: Implications for the Prevention of School Attacks in the United States, (U.S. Dep’t of Education and U.S. Secret Service 2002) (available at http://www.ed.gov/offices/OSDFS/preventingattacksreport.pdf) (hereinafter “Final Report”); Robert A. Fein, et al., Threat Assessment in Schools: A Guide to Managing Threatening Situations and to Creating Safe School Climates (U.S. Dep’t of Education and U.S. Secret Service 2002) (available at http://www.ed.gov/offices/OSDFS/threatassessmentguide.pdf) (hereinafter “Threat Assessment Guide”).

4 Final Report, pp. 13-14.

5 Final Report, pp. 22-27.

6 Final Report, pp. 27-32.

7 See note 3, supra.

8 Threat Assessment Guide, pp. 50-52.