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RAND researchers created this tool to advance efforts to prevent and reduce intentional, interpersonal firearm violence and public mass attacks in the United States. The goal of this tool is to provide practical strategies and guidance on deterring, mitigating, and responding to mass attacks for a variety of audiences, including public safety experts, practitioners, policymakers, community groups… (read more)

Discussions with administrators and other staff at dozens of colleges and universities reveal that many practices are commonly used to help team members identify, intervene with, and manage distressed, disruptive, or potentially violent students. This document includes highlights from these discussions with deans of students, heads of counseling, campus law enforcement officers, legal counsel,… (read more)

SchoolShooters.info is a compendium of documents relating to a wide range of active shooter incidents in educational settings. The purpose of this site is to help prevent school shootings and to provide insight into the perpetrators of large-scale school violence. The information and materials on this site are relevant for professionals in education, mental health, and law enforcement, as well as… (read more)

This book documents Virginia Tech's experience in developing and implementing a behavioral threat assessment process in the time following the campus shootings on April 16, 2007. In the course of building its behavioral threat assessment capacity, Virginia Tech created considerable documentation to support its Threat Assessment Team and related efforts. This documentation, which appears in… (read more)

This webinar reviews the components and procedures of behavioral threat assessment, which is recognized as current best practice to prevent violence on campus. Marisa Randazzo, Ph.D., principal and co-founder of SIGMA Threat Management Associates, LLC, provides a checklist of best-practice components, discusses how to evaluate current threat assessment programs, establishes screening questions to… (read more)

After the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007, many colleges and universities recognized that having threat assessment and management (TAM) teams in place to address potentially threatening behavior and situations among faculty, staff, and students on campus was a best practice. This article focuses on three main aspects of TAM teams on college campuses and what risk managers can do to… (read more)

This document is a tool to aid colleges and universities in developing awareness of various issues and concerns relating to students in institutions of higher education and in developing or revising policies, protocols and procedures suitable to your unique environment. Making decisions about students who may be distressed, suicidal, or threatening to others can be difficult on many levels. An… (read more)

Whether a campus is rural or urban, large or small, private or public, community/technical or four-year traditional, most schools have one or more teams with a purpose of supporting students of concern or preventing harmful behaviors. These groups are often called Threat Assessment Teams, Behavioral Intervention Teams, Case Management Teams, etc. The position of campus teams is a somewhat tricky… (read more)

Does your campus have the ability to address threatening behavior from students, employees, or external sources? Does your process meet current best practices for campus violence prevention? Campus behavioral threat assessment relies upon collaboration and partnerships in the community to identify and respond to at-risk behaviors. In this webinar, Dr. Randazzo provides an overview of best… (read more)

This publication is the product of an ongoing collaboration between the Secret Service and the Department of Education. The focus is on the use of the threat assessment process pioneered by the Secret Service as one component of the Department of Education's efforts to help schools across the nation reduce school violence and create safe climates. This guide sets forth a process for identifying,… (read more)

This article was written by Dewey Cornell, Ph.D. and published in Change magazine in 2010. In 2007, the landscape of campus safety changed abruptly with the Virginia Tech shooting and the subsequent wave of anonymous threats in colleges across the country. It seemed that the school shootings that have plagued K-12 schools were now advancing to colleges and universities. In response to the tragedy… (read more)

In this inaugural webinar, the National Center for Campus Public Safety welcomed national experts to discuss three essential topics in campus public safety: Thomas R. Tremblay on trauma-informed sexual assault investigation, Dr. Marisa Randazzo on behavioral threat assessment and Steven J. Healy on fair and impartial policing. Director Kim Vansell also provided an update on the NCCPS. As an… (read more)

This training program, developed by noted campus safety and threat assessment experts, is the first ever national curriculum that focuses on a multidisciplinary approach to threat assessment. It has been specifically designed for higher education administrators involved in threat assessment on their campuses, including campus public safety and local law enforcement; faculty; staff; student… (read more)

This training program, developed by noted campus safety and threat assessment experts, is the first ever national curriculum that focuses on a multidisciplinary approach to threat assessment. It has been specifically designed for higher education administrators involved in threat assessment on their campuses, including campus public safety and local law enforcement; faculty; staff; student… (read more)

This guide will allow threat assessment team members to explore and practice threat assessment through small and large group exercises using pre-developed case studies. This guide will also strengthen team members' comprehension and application of the threat assessment principles proscribed in "Campus Threat Assessment Training: A Multidisciplinary Approach for Institutions of Higher Education,"… (read more)

This report examined whether any differences exist between lone actor terrorists and mass murderers. Using a series of bivariate and multivariate statistical analyses, researchers compared demographic, psychological and offense-related behavioral variables across and between 71 lone actor terrorists and 115 solo mass murderers. The fundamental distinction between the two groups, motivation,… (read more)

Based on surveys sent to every member city of the Major Cities Chiefs (MCC) and campus public safety departments, along with subsequent analysis of survey findings by representatives from local and campus law enforcement, this publication contains campus security guidelines in the areas of policies and agreements, prevention and preparedness, coordinated response and "after action."

This article offers threat assessment and management strategies to address the increased demands faced by campus law enforcement, mental health, and administration officials who assess and manage threats, perhaps several simultaneously.

This guide provides recommendations in the development of plans to respond to an emergency and outlines how Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) can plan for preventing, protecting against, mitigating the impact of and recovering from emergencies. The guide translates lessons learned from the Administration's work on national preparedness to IHEs. The guide introduces new approaches to… (read more)

In this webinar you will learn about information regarding strategies for threat assessment and management in schools and higher education. Learning objectives include: present an overview of the threat assessment and management process; discuss policies and procedures related to the investigation of threats, including a review of the differences between K-12 and higher education settings and;… (read more)