C
HAPTER I - INTRODUCTION
5
The Safe School Initiative was patterned after the Exceptional Case Study Project
(ECSP), the Secret Service’s earlier five-year study of the thinking and behavior of
individuals who carried out or attempted lethal attacks on public officials or
prominent individuals in the United States since 1949.
4
The purpose of the ECSP
was to generate a better understanding of attacks against public officials that, in turn,
would inform Secret Service agents’ investigations of threats against the president
and other Secret Service protectees, and the development of strategies to prevent
harm to these public officials.
In July 1998, the Secret Service and the Justice Department’s National Institute of
Justice released the publication,
Protective Intelligence and Threat Assessment
Investigations: A Guide for State and Local Law Enforcement Officials, in an effort to
make the Service’s threat assessment protocols available to a wider law enforcement
audience. That publication offers state and local police officials guidance in carrying
out and evaluating the findings of threat assessment investigations.
5
The Safe School Initiative study reinforced the findings of the Secret Service’s ECSP
study concerning the thinking and behavior of attackers. In particular, like the ECSP,
the
Safe School Initiative concluded that most attackers did not threaten their targets
directly, but did engage in pre-attack behaviors that would have indicated an
inclination toward or the potential for targeted violence had they been identified.
Findings about the pre-attack behaviors of perpetrators of targeted violence validated
the "fact-based" approach of the threat assessment process. This process relies
primarily on an appraisal of
behaviors, rather than on stated threats or traits, as the
basis for determining whether there is cause for concern. These findings argue
favorably for pursuing adaptation of this threat assessment process for use by school
administrators and law enforcement officials in responding to the problem of
targeted school violence.
The
Guide is intended to provide school administrators and law enforcement officials
guidance in incorporating the threat assessment process for investigating, evaluating,
and managing targeted violence into strategies to prevent school violence. The
purpose of the
Guide is to contribute to achieving the broader goal of creating safe
and secure school environments by helping school and law enforcement officials
respond responsibly, prudently, and effectively to threats and other behaviors that
raise concern about potential violence.
Eff
ective threat assessment can only occur in a larger context of school safety.
Cultur
es and climat
es of saf
e
ty, respect, and emotional support can help diminish the
T
HREAT ASSESSMENT IN SCHOOLS GUIDE
• Casey, who was suspended last year for bringing a knife to school, left a "hit
list" on his desk.
• Terry submitted an essay in which an assassin blew up the school, attacked the
governor, and then killed himself.
Given the enormous concern about targeted school violence, these reported
statements and behaviors cannot be ignored. But how should school officials and
other responsible adults respond?
This publication,
Threat Assessment in Schools: A Guide to Managing Threatening
Situations and to Creating Safe School Climates
, is the product of an ongoing
collaboration between the U. S. Secret Service and the U. S. Department of
Education to begin to answer these questions. Its focus is on the use of the threat
assessment process pioneered by the Secret Service as one component of the
Department of Education’s efforts to help schools across the nation reduce school
violence and create safe climates. As developed by the Secret Service, threat
assessment involves efforts to identify, assess, and manage individuals and groups
who may pose threats of targeted violence.
Development of the School Threat Assessment Process
This Guide is an outgrowth of the joint Secret Service/Department of Education Safe
School Initiative. This initiative, begun in June 1999, was undertaken to explore the
potential for adapting the threat assessment investigative process developed by the
Secret Service to the problem of targeted school violence.
The
Safe School Initiative, implemented through the Secret Service’s National Threat
Assessment Center and the Department of Education’s Safe and Drug-Free Schools
Program, combined the Department of Education’s expertise in helping schools
facilitate learning through the creation of safe environments for students, faculty, and
staff, and the Secret Service’s experience in studying and preventing targeted
violence.
The
Safe School Initiative began with a study of the thinking, planning, and other pre-
attack behaviors engaged in by students who carried out school shootings.
3
That
study examined 37 incidents of targeted school violence that occurred in the United
States from December 1974 through May 2000 when researchers concluded their
dat
a collection.
4
3
Vossekuil, B., Fein, R., Reddy, M., Borum, R., & Modzeleski, W.
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. Department of Education: Washington, D. C. (May 2002), at 15. [hereinafter
The Safe School
Initiative Final Report
]. For a fuller discussion of the Safe School Initiative, its methodology, and findings,
please r
efer to this r
eport.
4
Fein, R. & V
ossekuil, B. "Assassination in the United States: An Operational Study of Recent Assassins,
Attackers, and Near-Lethal Approachers."
Journal of Forensic Sciences
, 44 (1999), at 321-333.
5
Fein, R. & Vossekuil, B.
Protective Intelligence and Threat Assessment Investigations: A Guide for State
and Local Law Enforcement Officials
. U. S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Pr
ograms, National
Institute of Justice: W
ashington, D. C. (July 1998).