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Wednesday, August 20th, 2008

Assessing Threats of Violence

In June, 2001 the Pennsylvania Department of Education, Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency and the Center for Safe Schools mailed a resource binder entitled "School Safety Resources, Assessing Threats of Violence: Resources to help educators plan and respond to incidents that threaten the safety of students and staff." The contents of the binder are now available through this web site. You may download the entire binder contents as a single pdf file or you may select individual pieces from the list below. Additional resources not included in the binder are also available through this web page.

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Download the entire binder as a single pdf file (127 pages)

Individual Sections

The School Shooter (pdf file)
The School Shooter: A Threat Assessment Perspective
This link will take you to the FBI's web site where you can download a pdf file of this 46 page publication. The monograph was developed from the concepts and principles developed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, NCAVC, in nearly 25 years of experience in threat assessment, ideas generated at a 1999 NCAVC symposium on school shootings, and an in-depth review of eighteen school shooting cases. It is aimed at prevention: identifying the precursors of violence through threat assessments, then initiating an intervention process to stop violent acts before they erupt. Its fundamental building blocks are the threat assessment standards that provide a framework for evaluating a spoken, written, and symbolic threat, and the four-pronged assessment approach. It provides a methodical process to examine the threatener and assess the risk that the threat will be carried out.

Threat Assessment: Defining an Approach for Evaluating Risk of Targeted Violence (only available as a pdf file, 15 pages)
written by Randy Borum, Robert Fein, Bryan Vossekuil and John Berglund
originally published in Behavioral Sciences and the Law volume 17, pages 323-337, 1999
The United States Secret Service developed and refined a threat assessment model that provides a useful framework for thinking about assessments of potential for targeted violence. This paper attempts to define this approach and apply it within the existing professional/scientific literature on risk assessment. The document reviews existing models and approaches to risk assessment, and identification of gaps in the existing knowledge as it relates to assessments of targeted violence. It provides an outline of the threat assessment approach, including a review of principles and guiding operational questions, and discussion of its use in assessment of targeted violence.

Assessing Threats of Targeted Group Violence: Contributions from Social Psychology (only available as a pdf file, 17 pages)
written by Marisa Reddy Pynchon and Randy Borum
originally published in Behavioral Sciences and the Law volume 17, pages 339-355. 1999.
The purpose of this document is to suggest the potential relevance of social psychological research on group behavior for understanding and assessing threats of extremis group violence and encourage more systematic research on group violence to further inform assessments of group risk.

An Interim Report on the Prevention of Targeted Violence in Schools (pdf file)
This document provides an analysis of information available about the behavior and thinking of young persons who commit acts targeted violence in our schools. The primary use of this document is to provide school and law enforcement professionals with additional tools to prevent school violence.
An Interim Report on the Prevention of Targeted Violence in Schools
This link will take you to the United States' Secret Service, National Threat Assessment Center's web site. The above publication is one of several available in pdf format on the web page. The Secret Service has developed their own Safe School Initiative which is a data-based research project that examines incidents of school-based attacks.

Bomb Threats and Physical Security Planning
from the Department of the Treasury, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)
We were denied permission to reprint or include the pdf file of this document. To obtain a copy please click on the above link to visit the ATF's Publications page where you can get a pdf file of this 22 page publication. Look for publication # P 7550.2. The document provides practical tools to be utilized in the event that a bomb threat is received. This document was prepared to provide the public and private sectors with guidelines and resources to be better prepared when a bomb threat occurs.

Educators and Students at Risk: Coping with Personal Threats (pdf file)
written by Mary Margaret Kerr, Ed.D.
This document provides some practical approaches, guidelines for assessing a threatening situation, what to do and some tools to identify potentially violent individuals.

Terroristic Threats/Acts (pdf file)
written by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA)
The Pennsylvania School Boards Association has provided the following sample terroristic threat policy in order to help administrators better prepare in the event of a bomb threat or other threat of violence. This is a guideline for administrators and school personnel to utilize when developing safe school plans and policies.

Bomb Threat Policy Templates (pdf file)
developed by Ron Stephens, Executive Director of the National School Safety Center.

Sample Bomb Threat Policy

Threat Response Resource List (pdf)

PEMA, Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (pdf)
Information about the Multi-Hazard Safe Schools Train-the-Trainer Program.

Click here to access PEMA's Web site

Additional Resources

Bomb Threat Checklist a pdf file from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms

School Violence and Safe School Resources from the Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms ATF

ATF Publications

FBI Publications

United States Secret Service, National Threat Assessment Center
The Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) was created to provide leadership and guidance to the emerging field of threat assessment. As part of its mission, the NTAC initiated a data-based research project to examine the incidents of school-based attacks. Since September 1999 NTAC staff have been conducting the Safe School Initiative, an operational study of 37 U.S. school shootings involving 41 perpetrators, that have occurred over the past 25 years.

Terrorism Guide from the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency

Threat Assessment: An Approach to Prevent Targeted Violence from the National Institute of Justice

The following two Pennsylvania school districts have agreed to share their bomb threat policies. If any others are interested in sharing policies please let us know.

Pittsburgh School District (pdf)
Butler Area School District (pdf)

Related web sites

Pennsylvania Department of Education
Pennsylvania School Boards Association, PSBA
Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, PEMA
National School Safety Center