Preventing Violence at School: Spotting Early Warning Signs

I have previously written about how to talk to the most difficult people, using language to de-escalate conflict and build connection.[i] With younger populations, this strategy is often prompted by sharing plans to commit violence, either in person or online.

The public is heartbroken each time headline news reports another school shooting. Prompting new precautions and prevention measures every time, we continue to work as a community to protect our precious young people from violence on campus. This includes working with troubled youth displaying red flags of potentially dangerous behavior before bullets start flying. In pursuit of identifying dangerous students while they are still in the pre-attack planning stages, campus security officers work with law enforcement and other threat assessment professionals every day to thwart future violence. Although we will never know exactly how often such efforts are successful because foiled attacks are hard to measure, certain types of offenders are more likely to be thwarted, particularly when they are young.

Source: Image by Photolesh from Pixabay

Leaking Plans to Commit a Massacre

Jason R. Silva and Emily A. Greene-Colozzi (2024) studied leakage-based mass shootings, comparing foiled and completed attacks.[ii] They define leakage as the “communication of violent intent that sometimes precedes an act of extreme violence.” Studying leakage within planned and completed mass shooting cases from 2000 to 2019, they found, among other things, that offenders who leaked their attack plans were more often foiled when they were under 18, targeted educational settings, planned with co-conspirators, and leaked online only. In contrast, older offenders aged 35 to 44 who leaked their plans were more likely commit the attack when they were targeting workplace settings or locations of commerce, and leaked in-person and in written statements to intimate partners, coworkers, and family members. While they did not find it to be statistically significant, Silva and Greene-Colozzi also found that a higher number of mass shootings were foiled after offenders leaked to classmates and friends.

Violence Prevention Involves Both Looking and Listening

When considering the characteristics of foiled offenders, Silva and Greene-Colozzi point out that the difference between younger and older offenders makes sense considering children and adolescents who are minors (under 18 years old) reside with parents or guardians, in addition to spending time in settings where they are observed and supervised, such as at school. And unlike the types of settings adults often patronize on their own, schools mandate interaction with others, including school staff, teachers, and classmates, which creates greater opportunities for witnesses to encounter leakage. And when two youthful offenders are planning a massacre together, Silva and Greene-Colozzi note there is double the chance one of the two will either intentionally or accidentally disclose the plan.

Especially when it comes to interacting with young people, protecting the community includes both watching and listening. Peers, professors and school principals are in a good position to both look and listen to the students with whom they interact, and ideally situated to averting an act of violence before it occurs.