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The Final Report and Findings of the Safe School Initiative: Implications for the Prevention of School Attacks in the United States
Date: May 2002
Author: Vossekuil, Bryan, Robert A. Fein, Marisa Reddy, Randy Borum, and William Modzeleski
Institution: U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Dept. of Education
Bibliographic Entry: Vossekuil, Bryan, Robert A. Fein, Marisa Reddy, Randy Borum, and William Modzeleski. The Final Report and Findings of the Safe School Initiative: Implications for the Prevention of School Attacks in the United States. U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Dept. of Education, 2002.
Electronic Link: http://www.secretservice.gov/ntac/ssi_final_report.pdf
Key Words: safe schools, targeted violence
Summary of Key Points, Issues, Conclusions:
The objective of the Safe School Initiative was to attempt to identify information that could be obtainable prior to an attack. That information would then be analyzed and evaluated to produce a factual, accurate knowledge base on targeted school attacks, and to help communities across the country form policies and strategies aimed at preventing school-based attacks.
The report is from an ongoing collaboration between the U. S. Secret Service and the U.S. Department of Education to answer two central questions: "Could we have known that these attacks were being planned?" and, if so, "What could we have done to prevent these attacks from occurring?" Thirty-seven incidents of targeted school violence occurring in the United States from December 1974 through May 2000 were examined.
“Targeted-violence” incidents were defined as an incident where: 1.) a current student or recent former student attacked someone at his or her school with lethal means, and 2.) where the student attacker purposefully chose his or her school as the attack location. The term evolved from a five-year study by the Secret Service, known as the Exceptional Case Study Project (ECSP), focusing on the behavior of individuals who have carried out, or attempted, lethal attacks on public officials or prominent individuals.
Findings from the Initiative suggest officials consider focusing their efforts for preventing attacks in two principal areas:
• Developing the capacity to pick up on and evaluate available or knowable information that might indicate that there is a risk of a targeted school attack
• Employing the results of these risk evaluations or “threat assessments” in developing strategies to prevent potential school attacks from occurring
Support for the previous suggestions is found in the 10 points below:
• Incidents of targeted violence at school rarely were sudden, impulsive acts
• Prior to most incidents, other people knew about the attacker’s plan
• Most attackers did not threaten their targets directly prior to the attack
• There is no accurate "profile" of students who engaged in targeted school violence
• Most attackers engaged in some behavior prior to the incident that caused concern
• Most attackers had difficulty coping with loss or failures or had attempted suicide
• Many attackers felt bullied or persecuted by others prior to the attack
• Most attackers had access to and had used weapons prior to the attack
• In many cases, other students were involved in some capacity
• Despite prompt law enforcement responses, most shooting incidents were stopped by means other than law enforcement
Several characteristics of incidents from targeted school violence were found, as well as target and victim characteristics. Findings of the 37 incidents fell into five general categories:
• Characterizing the attacker
• Conceptualizing the attack
• Signaling the attack
• Advancing the attack
• Resolving the attack
Name of Researcher: Alison Stevens
Institution: Integrative Center for Homeland Security, Texas A&M University
Date Posted: February 15, 2007