School Violence
April 2005
On Monday, March 21, 2005, the United States
was once again reminded of the horrific problem of violence in its schools,
when 16-year-old Jeff Weise, a student at Red Lake High School in northern Minnesota,
went on a killing rampage. Weise began by going to his grandfather's home armed
with a .22 caliber handgun. He shot and killed his grandfather, Daryl Lussier,
a sergeant on the local police force, and his grandfather's companion, Michelle
Sigana. He then took his grandfather's gun belt loaded with ammunition and his
grandfather's 12-guage shotgun and .40 caliber handgun and drove to the high
school. Once there, he killed a school security guard, a teacher, and 5 students
before getting into a shooting confrontation with several police officers and
eventually committing suicide.
by James
N. Madero, Ph.D.
Violence Prevention
International
A Decade of School Violence
The tragedy at Red Lake High School was the worst incident of school violence
since the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, on April
20, 1999. For almost a decade, the nation has been shocked by the incidents
of school violence that include the following.
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Moses Lake, Washington—February 2, 1996
A 14-year-old student killed a teacher and two students, and wounded
another student with a hunting rifle.
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Pearl, Mississippi—October 1, 1997
A 16-year-old boy stabbed his mother, and then went to school and
shot nine students, two of whom died.
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West Paducah, Kentucky—December 1, 1997
A 14-year-old boy killed three students and wounded five others while they
prayed in the hallway.
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Jonesboro, Arkansas—March 24, 1998
Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, shot and killed four girls and
a teacher and wounded ten others. The two boys activated a fire alarm, and
shot their victims as they evacuated the building.
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Edinboro, Pennsylvania—April 24, 1998
A 14-year-old boy killed a science teacher and wounded two classmates.
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Springfield, Oregon—May 21, 1998
A 15-year-old boy killed two students and wounded 18 others.
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Littleton, Colorado—April 20, 1999
Twelve students and one teacher were killed and 23 students were wounded by
Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, at Columbine High School in the
nation's deadliest school shooting. Harris and Klebold then killed themselves.
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Conyers, Georgia—May 20, 1999
A boy upset over a broken romance shot and wounded six students, and then
fell to his knees, stuck a gun in his mouth, and surrendered in tears.
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Lake Worth, Florida—May 26, 2000
Nate Brazill, 13, killed a teacher with a semiautomatic pistol on the last
day of classes.
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Santee, California—March 5, 2001
Two students were killed and 13 wounded by Charles Andrew Williams, 15, at
Santana High School.
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Red Lion, Pennsylvania—April 24, 2003
The principle of Red Lion Area Junior High School was killed by James Sheets,
14, who then killed himself.
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Cold Spring, Minnesota—September 24, 2003
One student was killed and another was wounded at Rocori High School by John
Jason McLaughlin, 15.
When violence occurs at schools, the lives of students, staff, teachers,
parents, the community, and the nation are impacted forever. The possibility
of becoming a victim of school violence continues to fuel the fears of students,
teachers, administrators, and parents for years afterward. The awareness of
the ever-present potential for school violence, and the need to make schools
safer, has led many school systems to either implement a school violence prevention
program or augment the one they already had.
Schools have mobilized to design and implement strategies to ensure the safety
of their students and employees. The need for increasing public awareness of
the risk factors and warning signs associated with school violence has also
become an integral part of an effective school violence prevention program.
School Violence Behaviors
School violence involves a broad range of troubling behaviors and emotions
shown by students. These include antisocial and aggressive acts of physical,
verbal, or visual violence that occur in a school setting, and are intended
to harm, demean, or intimidate, any member of the school community, or are intended
to destroy the physical assets of a school. These behaviors may include, but
are not limited to, physical assaults, uncontrolled bouts of anger directed
at others, bullying and taunting, fighting, hostile verbal expressions, stealing
and vandalizing property, dealing drugs, sexual assaults, and carrying, threatening
to use, or actually using guns, knives, or other types of weapons with the intent
to harm others, and in some instances committing suicide or homicide.
School Violence Prevention Programs
A school is a workplace, so that many of the elements that have been part
of workplace violence prevention program since the early 1990s can—and should—be
part of a comprehensive school violence prevention program. The incidents of
violence committed by students should not minimize the need to treat a school
as a workplace. Creating a safe school environment requires focusing on the
traditional elements of a workplace violence prevention program, such as developing
procedures and policies to help prevent employees from harming one another as
well as harming students.
Preventing violence in the workplace and schools is based on knowledge, trust,
communication, and prompt action. Those involved must be willing to work together
to achieve a mutual goal: the recognition of warning signs that indicate violence
is likely, along with prompt, appropriate action to diffuse the situation and
prevent the violence from occurring.
Relying solely on physical security—such as fences, locks, alarms, cameras,
and security personnel—will not ensure violence prevention. These elements were
all in place on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.
Despite their presence, student assailants killed 12 classmates and a teacher,
and wounded 23 others in the bloodiest school violence incident in U.S. history.
Success in preventing school violence is proactive and preemptive. Once the
violence has begun, steps should be taken to minimize injuries, deaths, and
damage, and then to discover who the perpetrators are, and why the violence
erupted. The potential for violence and the need for a prevention program should
not be downplayed or ignored because an incident has not yet occurred or because
the last incident took place a long time ago. This approach could lead to a
disaster.
On the other hand, no one wants to work or go to school in an oppressive,
overly restrictive environment that unduly restricts personal freedom, creativity,
and expression of ideas or individuality. Such an environment could make it
difficult for teachers to teach and students to learn. A heavy-handed approach
to physical security that causes excessive stress and resentment will not be
effective in the long run.
Knowledge
A great deal has been written about what had been observed in Littleton prior
to the disaster there. There was overwhelming evidence that violence was imminent,
but there was no system in place to process and act on that intelligence so
as to prevent what occurred. For a school violence prevention program to work,
everyone must be involved. In the school environment, "everyone" means teachers,
administrators, staff, students, parents, emergency response organizations,
and the general public. Everyone has to understand:
- the goals and objective of the school violence prevention program
- what constitutes unacceptable behavior with regard to threats and violence
- how the program will operate
- the warning signs
- the roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder group and key individuals
A business organization can mandate the formation of a violence prevention
team. However, a school or school district that wants to develop and implement
a violence prevention program will face the challenge of persuading a diverse
group of people of the need for, and value of the program. This step may pose
the greatest single challenge in the process, unless an incident of violence
occurred recently. However, this coalescence of people into a productive working
group is fundamental to success, and warrants whatever effort is necessary.
The composition of a workplace violence prevention team in a business setting
typically involves members from Human Resources, Medical, Legal, Security, and
other departments, supplemented by external legal and psychological resources
when needed. A school violence prevention program requires skills and expertise
both from within and from outside the school system. The school violence prevention
team may involve members of the school superintendent's office, local government,
law enforcement, and other members of the community.
Everyone has a stake in a violence prevention program, not just the students,
parents, and teachers. If a severe incident were to occur, the community as
a whole would be subject to scrutiny and criticism. This includes the school
board, the local government, law enforcement, the clergy, community leaders,
local media, business owners, and realtors. There is always enough blame and
guilt to go around.
Preventing a serious act of school violence generally involves the following
process: a member of one of the stakeholder groups observes behavior, material,
or something that suggests the potential for threatening or violent behavior.
This concern is quickly communicated to a specified point of contact. An immediate
assessment is made of the situation and, if indicated, the appropriate members
of the school violence prevention team are activated and begin responding to
the situation. These team members have the necessary authority and expertise
to deal with the situation. They follow a prescribed course of action that involves
fact finding, diagnosis of the problem, and intervention to mitigate the risk
of violence. The situation is monitored and managed until there is no longer
a viable threat of violence.
Everyone involved must understand the need for a formal, clearly stated administrative
policy forbidding threats and acts of violence, and that violations of the policy
will not be tolerated. Each stakeholder should be aware of the behaviors and
circumstances that serve as a warning and precede violent behavior.
Trust
Trust may be an intangible, but in its absence, a school violence prevention
program will not work. All stakeholders must support the goals and objectives
of the program and believe that it will work. In addition, everyone must be
confident that they will not be subject to any form of reprisal or embarrassment
for reporting their suspicions about impending violence.
Trust can only be earned over time through actions. General information about
the program as well as more detailed training must be delivered in a very practical,
straightforward manner. When the program has been implemented, all incidents
must be handled tactfully and promptly. Confidential matters must be held close,
and shared only as absolutely required, and on a need-to-know basis. If the
program and its managers do not perform in such a way as to earn the trust of
all stakeholders, it will be doomed to failure.
Communication
The preparation and delivery clear communications is critical to the success
of the program. Everyone involved must understand why the program is needed
and how it works. They should be reminded of the potential cost of a violent
incident in terms of loss of life, injuries, property damage, lawsuits, and
community reputation. It may be necessary to modify the content of the presentation
as appropriate for local government and school board administrators, students
and their parents, the business community, and the general public.
A cornerstone of the program will be a clear policy statement delivered at
the onset from a recognized authority figure, such as the mayor, superintendent
of education, or principal. The key to this communication is identification
of the unacceptable behaviors that are being targeted, and an announcement that
they will not be tolerated. It will also be important to develop training materials
so that everyone involved will knows what his or her role is in the program.
When the program is ready to be initiated and implemented, everyone should
be informed. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways, including personal
presentations, newspaper articles, letters to parents, and any creative ways
that make sense. The widespread understanding that a violence prevention program
exists, and that violent behavior will not be tolerated, can sometimes act as
a deterrent.
When the program begins operation, the school violence prevention team must
communicate effectively among themselves. They must be clear and concise in
expressing their thoughts. Detailed records should be kept about meetings, so
that if called on to do so, the team can explain the rationale for its decisions
and actions. Finally, the program administrators should keep in contact with
all stakeholder groups with regard to the program's progress.
Prompt Action
Nothing will doom a program like inaction. If a stakeholder reports a suspicious
behavior and that report is not promptly investigated, the system has failed.
People will lose hard won confidence rapidly. In addition, if an incident should
occur after a report, and prior to action, everyone involved with the violence
prevention team could be liable. If this occurs, it would be better not to have
a program because the stakeholders would be mistakenly depending on a process
that does not work. It is absolutely imperative that all reports are investigated
promptly, and incidents are managed to a successful and nonviolent conclusion
as soon as possible.
A Model School Violence Prevention Program
There are many school violence prevention programs that have been developed
and implemented over the past decade. Some are better than others. The best
ones are comprehensive and involve a number of important components. These include
security measures, disciplinary policies and procedures, strategies for responding
to threats and violent situations, crisis response guidelines, a school-wide
action plan, training in warning signs, risk factors, and threat assessment,
and parental and community involvement.
The Seven Step Workplace Violence Prevention Program described below provides
an excellent model for a comprehensive and effective school violence prevention
program. A school violence prevention program should include the following.
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Security Survey and Violence Vulnerability Assessment
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School Violence Prevention Policy
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School Violence Prevention Team
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Communication Plan for Reporting Incidents and Concerns
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Incident Investigation and Management Procedures
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Multi-Level Training
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Effectiveness Evaluation
These components form the basis of a core program. However, each school system
needs to develop an individually customized program that contains the elements
of the core program as they relate to the particular school system. If possible,
the program should be developed with the help of an experienced consultant and
the input of all stakeholders including students, parents, teachers, school
administrators, school employees, school board members, community leaders, and
local law enforcement. The members of each of these groups should be informed
as to their specific role in the school violence prevention program.
They should also receive training. At a minimum, this training should include
information about the program, the names and contact numbers of the team members,
the warning signs to look out for, and how and where to report concerns. The
School Violence Prevention team should be trained on how to identify potential
perpetrators of violence, whether they be students, faculty, administrators,
or school employees. The Team should also be trained on the warnings signs of
potential violence, and how to conduct an investigation, perform a threat and
risk assessment, and develop a plan to manage each incident to a safe conclusion.
A Final Word
The model prevention program presented above contains many of the components
that have been successfully used in the workplace violence prevention programs
over the past 15 years by many business and organizations in the corporate world.
These components have proven to be successful in dealing with the problem of
workplace violence. One of the most critical elements of a successful workplace
violence prevention program is to identify the behaviors and warning signs that
frequently precede violent incidents.
This is particularly critical in school violence prevention programs since
almost without exception, the students that ultimately commit the violence exhibit
behaviors and warning signs before becoming violent. In many instances they
will tell a number of their fellow students about what they are planning to
do. At Red Lake High School, it appears that at least 20 students knew about
what Jeff Weise was planning to do. At Columbine High School, the perpetrators
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold did the following before they went on their rampage:
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discussed plans with other students
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kept a detailed diary for over a year
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acquired firearms and explosives
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gained technical knowledge of bombs and bomb-making devices
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made over 30 bombs
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obtained school blueprint plans
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covertly copied school keys
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created a Web site that threatened other students
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made a video for a class project that involved shooting students at the
school
Had a comprehensive school violence prevention program such as the one described
in this article been in place at Red Lake or Columbine, it is possible the homicides
there could have been prevented. As more and more schools develop violence prevention
programs, there is the hope that the tragic incidents of violence in the nation's
schools will eventually become a thing of the past.
Opinions expressed in Expert Commentary articles are those of the author and are
not necessarily held by the author’s employer or IRMI. This article does not purport
to provide legal, accounting, or other professional advice or opinion. If such advice
is needed, consult with your attorney, accountant, or other qualified adviser.