Assessing School Rampage Threats: Exploring Violence Risk Assessment by School and Police Officials

• In Event: Risk Factors Implicated in School Shootings

Abstract

Utilizing in-depth interviews conducted with school and police officials directly involved in assessing and preventing what many perceived to be potential rampages at eleven public middle and high schools across the United States, this study reveals how officials engage in violence risk assessment by examining the forms of evidence present when claims are made that a school rampage threat has been averted. Findings explore both threat assessment criteria (i.e. plot details and the role of weaponry) and warning signs or profiling criteria of likely school rampage offenders (i.e. individual and group characteristics). The use of these various criteria by school and police officials are described and discussed in terms of the extent to which they are supported by empirical evidence.

Author

• Eric Madfis, University of Washington, Tacoma