DRU Library Menu

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)

Recognized as CSHEMA's 2023 Marketing Single Media Award for a Small School, this video outlines the "Avoid, Deny, Defend" survival method, a national model that SMU has adopted to educate our campus. The tactics shown in this video are the result of in-depth, after-action lessons learned through partnerships with law enforcement agencies, individuals and institutions who have been involved in… (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)

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)

Restrictions on legal gun owners carrying firearms in public places have been removed or greatly weakened in most states over the past three decades. Eight states now have laws that, generally, allow individuals who can legally carry guns elsewhere to bring guns onto college campuses. In 24 states, colleges and universities have the authority to allow or forbid civilians from having firearms on… (read more)

Colleges and other postsecondary schools must plan for various potential emergencies, ranging from natural disasters to violence. A number of federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Department of Education (ED), offer resources to support these efforts. GAO was asked to review colleges' awareness of these resources. This… (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)

Following the tragic shooting at Umpqua Community College in 2015, the Oregon Campus Safety Work Group (OCSWG) was formed to identify resource needs and potential state policies that enable a coordinated strategy across the higher education system for public and private institutions; as well as analyze promising practices and protocols that can be shared across all post-secondary education… (read more)

The purpose of this ACHA White Paper is to confront this serious college health issue through analyzing campus violence patterns, types of violence, methodological problems with collecting campus crime data, underlying issues related to campus violence, and promising practices to prevent and address campus violence.

NASPA and ECS offer a retrospective analysis of state legislative activity during the 2013 and 2015 legislative sessions that focused on campus sexual violence. We provide detailed descriptions of four major policy themes identified through a content analysis of introduced and enacted legislation and frame considerations for state decision makers and campus leaders. This brief is intended to help… (read more)

This report, the third installment in a joint partnership between NASPA and ECS, connects policy and practice through two integral issues: campus sexual violence and guns on campus. This publication tracks recent state-led legislation around both issues for the last two years and offers this information in the form of a series of illustrative charts and maps. During 2015, at least 29 states… (read more)

Amid efforts by campus leaders to build violence prevention and crisis response strategies, colleges and universities continue to be impacted by active shooter violence. Incidents of mass violence have led to debate by lawmakers about the appropriate course of policy action to mitigate the public safety threat that active shooters pose to our communities. This report offers a detailed summary of… (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)

The Police Foundation launched the Averted School Violence Near Miss Reporting System (ASV) for law enforcement officials, school officials, and mental health professionals with funding from the Community Oriented Policing Services Office. The mission of the ASV system is to share information about averted school violence incidents and lessons learned in order to improve school safety and help… (read more)

According to 2016 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, most Americans live in urban areas, with approximately one in five people living in rural areas. Urban areas are also home to 68% of the nation's 7,000+ institutions of higher education (IHEs). Denser populations, space constraints, infrastructure issues, and other characteristics common in urban areas are all factors affecting safety and… (read more)

According to 2016 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, most Americans live in urban areas, with approximately one in five people living in rural areas. Urban areas are also home to 68% of the nation's 7,000+ institutions of higher education (IHEs). Denser populations, space constraints, infrastructure issues, and other characteristics common in urban areas are all factors affecting safety and… (read more)

This free, online repository offers a variety of resources to empower practitioners and campus leaders to better prepare for, respond to, and recover from various threats and hazards relevant to the academic community. The resources included represent a variety of federal, state, local, private-sector, emergency management, and academic association entities. Resources in the library are organized… (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 recent years, we have seen a rise in the creation of mobile apps designed for safety and security. In combination with the technical abilities of smartphones, the creation and demand for safety apps is growing out of security concerns across the nation in the wake of campus shootings and other safety incidents. According to the Pearson Student Mobile Device Survey 2015, conducted by Harris… (read more)

While the law enforcement community has progressed in advancing training in the tactical response to incidents, there are significant gaps in strategies aimed at preventing multiple casualty violence. To address this need, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers has collaborated with the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing… (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 examines the incidence of college student victimization and compares the findings to persons of similar ages in the general population. In addition, the report describes the extent to which student victimization occurs on campus and in off-campus locations and settings, as well as the involvement of alcohol and drugs in student victimizations.