It’s Time To Arm Our Schools

May 7, 2013 - PRLog -- Preventing violence in 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.

Success in preventing school violence is proactive and preemptive. Once the violence has occurred, steps should be taken to minimize injuries, deaths and damage—then to discover who the perpetrators are and why the violence took place. The potential for violence and the need for a preventative 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. Often, this approach could lead to a disaster.

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 objectives 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.

Preventing a serious act of school violence generally involves the following process: a member of one stakeholder group observes behavior, material or something that suggests the potential for threatening or violent behavior. This concern is quickly communicated, anonymously 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.

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 school 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 within the program.

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 within 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.

One of the most critical elements of a successful school violence prevention program is to identify the behaviors and warning signs that frequently precede violent incidents.

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, anonymous student/parent incident reporting, systematic collaborative investigation program for strategies for responding to threats and violent situations, crisis response guidelines, a school-wide action plan, training in warning signs, risk factors, threat assessment and parental and community involvement.

This article has been authored by James Rea C.E.O of Crime Solutions, proprietor of the Community Safe Schools Program. Community Safe Schools is an innovative program that will reduce school violence through modern and effective technology.  www.communitysafeschools.com