Predicting Violent Behavior

As we approach the anniversary of the Columbine tragedy, it is still apparent that our nation’s schools are still in desperate need of formal threat assessment programs to help predict – and thereby prevent- targeted school violence. The first step in implementing your school’s (or district’s) program is to develop a formal threat assessment policy.
A solid policy should set a baseline that establishes what type of behavior will be assessed or investigated. It is important to remember that the key is not who makes a threat but rather who poses a threat. Your policy may be to investigate and assess every threat of violence, no matter how unlikely. However, you should never wait for a threat. Inappropriate behavior and communications, while not a threat, are often a much better predictor or violent behavior. An example of inappropriate behavior is demonstrated in this poem written and submitted to a teacher weeks before the author opened fire on his classmates and teachers:

Sinking into bed
Homicidal feelings fill my head
Suicidal thoughts not gone but not fleeing
Because it is other people’s death I’m seeing
Suicide or Homicide
Homicide or Suicide
Into sleep I’m sinking
Why me I am thinking
Homicidal and suicidal thoughts intermixing
I know my life’s not worth fixing.
Now matter what the media “experts” say, the behavioral process leading to violence is observable; if you are in a position to observe the behavior and you know what to look for. Teachers and counselors are almost always in the position to observe the indicators of this building process. That is why providing training in identifying pre-incident indicators is critical in the success of a good threat assessment program. By knowing what to look for and reporting indicators of violent behavior, teachers and counselors allow the system to work.
Another important aspect of your policy is the development of a threat assessment team. This team can be comprised of administrators, school counselors, teachers, mental health professionals and law enforcement, will review cases to determine if the student in question poses a threat and what course of action to take with the student. Case management is an often overlooked aspect of threat assessment. As Gavin de Becker points out in his book “The Gift of Fear”, an assessment is looking at a snap shot in time of that person’s life, as the person’s life changes (for better or worse) so does the assessment.
Threat assessment is certainly a new area for most school administrators, but there is help. The United States Secret Service has developed a school assessment program and Gavin de Becker, who is widely regarded a world leader in security and predictive behavior has a comprehensive system and several books on the subject of predicting violence.

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