Essay: Annotated Bibliography

SCHOOL VIOLENCE: REPORTED SCHOOL SHOOTINGS AND MAKING SCHOOLS SAFER

R o s a lin d D u ple c h a in , PhD University o f West Georgia

R o b er t M o r r is, P hD University o f West Georgia

This manuscript consists o f three sections. Section one provides his­ torical data on some 310 documented shootings that have taken place on school property within the United States. Section two discusses numerous risk factors associated with school shooters. Section three discusses numerous strategies for creating safe schools.

Key words: U.S. schools shootings, risk factors o f school shooters, creating safe schools

School shootings are most commonly committed by either a student who goes to the school or by an intruder from off campus who has a connection to someone within a particular school. From 1760 until 2010, in the United States alone, there have been more than 310 documented shootings on school property. These researchers have gathered the following historic data about these schools shootings:

Table 1. Reported School Shootings in U.S. *

Period o f Time Total Number of School Shootings

1760 - 1900 (140 year period) 25 1900 - 1930 (30 year period) 39

1930 - 1960 (30 year period) 45 1960 - 1990 (30 year period) 53 1990 — 2014 (24 year period)** 190

T h e s e data were collected from various newspa­ per reports.

** Last count was October 24, 2014.

It is worth noting that America has wit­ nessed four major school shootings in re­ cent years - one at a university and three at K-12 schools (public and private). In 1999,

Columbine High School was number 204 out o f these 300 plus incidents. In 2006, the Amish schoolhouse was number 236. In 2007, Virginia Tech was number 242. In 2012, San­ dy Hook Elementary School was number 300.

Since 2010, there have been at least 80 more school shootings. That’s an average of 20 school shootings per year from 2010 to 2014. The number o f deaths in these addi­ tional school shootings is 86. Twenty-seven deaths were reported for Newton, CT alone. These figures are staggering even though violent deaths at our schools account for less than 1% o f the homicides and suicides among children ages 5 to 18 in the United States.

These types o f tragedies touch the hearts o f every American and it is time to better un­ derstand the particulars o f the most horrible o f forms o f school violence, school shootings.

Behaviors and Risk Factors of School Shooters

There are several behaviors— risk fac­ tors— of school shooters. All school person­ nel should be aware o f these risk factors as many o f them are understandable and easy to identify.

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Bullying. O f course bullying and school shootings are directly linked to each other. Research by Crawford in 2001 reported that o f the 37 school shootings he identified and studied, 75% o f the school shooters felt bul­ lied, threatened, or were attacked or injured by others. Several o f the shooters he reported on said they experienced long-term bullying and harassment from their peers. J. Klein’s 2007 description o f today’s school culture and why school shootings take place is noteworthy:

In every school shooting, boys target­ ed girls who rejected them, boys who called them “gay” or otherwise belit­ tled them and other student’s at the top o f the school’s hierarchy— white, wealthy, and athletic— and then shot down other students in the effort to reinstate their injured masculinity. In high schools as well as colleges, popular kids tend to be wealthier and the boys at the top o f the school caste are often perceived as “jocks”. Those that do not fit into these categories are often teased, or seen as relatively unimportant or even invisible. The boys who killed generally came from less wealthy backgrounds than those they targeted and almost all o f them specifically aimed at those perceived as wealthy and popular; the “jocks and preps” in the school who were also the ones who bullied them (Klein, 2007).

School personnel too often accept that chil­ dren get teased and bullied every day, because teachers, parents, students, and other adults have grown up thinking that bullying is a nor­ mal part o f school life. It has too easily become an accepted part o f today’s school culture.

Many people believe that school shoot­ ers are deranged individuals when actually they are retaliating against the pain they have felt on a daily ba­ sis. Those who solely blame mental

illnesses miss the real concerns and ef­ fect o f bullying. These individuals are severely troubled (Klein, 2007).

O f course it’s easy to blame the shoot­ ers, but most o f the shooters reached out to someone before the event ever took place. As Crawford noted: “In more than 80% o f the cases [he studied], at least one person knew the attacker was planning something; two or more people knew in almost 60 percent o f the cases” (Crawford, 2002, p. 64). Crawford also noted that most o f the attacks he reviewed were planned events and not spontaneous. This ultimately means that adults and other students have to be listening closely to the messages that individuals in distress are send­ ing. In most cases that message is “stop the bullying” !

The Individual, The Family, and Soci­ ety. Aside from bullying being a major risk factor leading to school shootings, there are other risk factors involved. At least two stud­ ies have compiled a list o f risk factors and categorized them.

Study 1. The Center for Disease and Control (CDC) lists three categories o f risk factors that they say demonstrate a history of violent incidents in our schools (Understand­ ing School Violence, 2008):

Some personal risk factors that can lead to violent incidents in school include:

• Attention deficits; hyperactivity or learning disorder; history o f early aggressive behavior; association with delinquent peers; involvement in gangs, drugs, alcohol, or tobacco; poor IQ; poor academic performance; low commitment to school; poor behavioral control; deficits in social, cognitive, or information processing abilities; high emotional distress; antisocial beliefs and attitudes; social rejection by peers; and exposure to violence and conflicts in the family.

S c h o o l V io le n c e : R e p o r t e d S c h o o l S h o o t in g s A n d M a k in g S c h o o ls S a f e r / 1 4 7

Some familial risk factors that can lead to violent incidents in school include:

• Harsh, lax, or inconsistent disciplinary practices; low parental involvement; low emotional attachment to parents or caregivers; low parental education and income; parental substance abuse or criminality; poor family function­ ing; and poor monitoring and supervi­ sion o f children.

Some community and societal risk factors that could lead to violent incidents in school include:

• Diminished economic opportunities, high concentrations o f poor residents, high level o f transiency, high level o f family disruption, low levels o f community participation, and socially disorganized neighborhoods.

Study 2. In 2005, Lisa Snell and Alexander Volockh also studied school violence patterns and outlined a few of the most important things that lead to violence in schools. They are:

• Poverty, which lays a foundation of anger and discontent;

• Illegitimacy and the breakdown of families, which led children to seek the stability and caring environment o f gangs;

• Domestic violence and child abuse, which foster learning and behavior problems, frustration, and retaliation;

• Society-wide violence rates and juve­ nile violence rates, which spill over into the school;

• The drug culture and its violent dis­ tribution network, which encourage students to arm themselves;

• Immigration, especially from coun­ tries where formal education is less valued;

• Population mobility, which creates an atmosphere o f anonymity;

• Discrimination, which exacerbates the frustration and anger o f minority students.

• Violent cultural imagery, from TV shows to sympathetic news coverage o f militaristic foreign policy, which numbs children to the effects of violence;

• Materialism and advertising, which creates a culture where children are manipulated and feel exploited;

• Competitiveness and high parent ex­ pectations, which make children, lose the identity and uniqueness o f child­ hood before their time.

A closer look at both lists points to the role individual experiences and the role family and society can play in violence.

Relationships and Past Traumas. A deeper look at both lists o f risk factors also points to the role relationships and past ex­ periences o f trauma can play in school shoot­ ings. For example, the lack o f attachment with their parents or caregivers at the beginning of their life has contributed to some o f the ac­ tions o f school shooters. Seung-Hui Cho, who was the shooter in the Virginia Tech Massacre on April 16, 2007 suffered from this kind o f risk factor. Chou did not communicate with his parents and those around him (Manthley, 2007). Most o f the shooters either had a very poor relationship with their parents or had no relationship at all.

Also, some o f the shooters the CDC an­ alyzed were from dysfunctional home en­ vironments. They were often unhappy with themselves, fearful and afraid of the future, or concerned they would die with no identity.

Finally, a recent traumatic event can also be a risk factor for an already troubled stu­ dent. Some o f the shooters, as identified by

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the Center o f Disease and Control, were re­ jected by a school in various ways: not being able to graduate, given a failing grade, or not being admitted into the post-secondary school o f their choice.

Brain Development. There is a good pos­ sibility the research being done by Joe Manley has identified yet another risk factor o f school shooters: a link between the psychological effects o f the lack o f attachment and how the brain develops. Manley’s work was reported in M en’s Daily News in 2007. In an article titled “Risk Factors in School Shootings” Manley notes that his work demonstrates that there is compelling evidence that the human brain has a specialized region for making personal and social decisions. This region is located in the frontal lobes at the top o f the brain and is connected to deeper brain regions that store emotional memories. In his discus­ sion he notes that boys suffer the majority o f childhood brain disorders and diseases, many o f which eventually translate into immoral and undisciplined behavior. These disorders, according to Manthey, affect the male’s brain and specifically their self-control. O f course Manthey’s work is speculative, but very in­ sightful for a number o f the issues surround­ ing the violence demonstrated by a number of the shooters o f recent years.

Creating Safe Schools

The major intent o f this paper is not to dwell on the extent and/or depth o f what is the makeup o f school shooters, but it is more to give insight into how to create a safe school and a safe school environment. It’s interest­ ing to note that today’s schools face many different problems from those o f sixty years ago. Lisa Snell and Alexander Volockh (2005) describe how the top three disciplinary prob­ lems public schools faced in the 1950’s were talking out o f turn, chewing gum and students making too much noise. Today the top three problems schools face are drug abuse, alcohol

abuse, and pregnancy. Crime and violence have infiltrated our schools, and educators have been forced to change the way they dis­ cipline and monitor their schools.

Today’s school administrators are doing many things to foster a positive, safe environ­ ment, and most are accomplishing this end in a variety o f different ways other than turning their school into an armed fortress. It’s also interesting to note how that the federal gov­ ernment’s response to school security has been dismal. Redlener even reports in 2006 that federal funds to improve school security have been severely cut back, with fewer than two percent o f the nation’s school districts having received emergency-response grants from the U.S. Department o f Education (Redlener, 2006).

So what can schools do for themselves to create safer environments? What kinds o f “home grown strategies” make sense, and how do we keep from making our schools armed camps? According o f Redlener (2006), the common sense steps that should be taken are:

• Points o f entry into schools or school grounds need to be limited and con­ trolled, and staffed by an adult trained to determine if potential visitors be­ long there or not.

• Wireless panic alarms need to be made available in every school. If a situation warranting concern arises, an alarm could be sounded to simul­ taneously alert the school and local law-enforcement officials.

• Schools need to have strategically placed telephones for making all calls.

• Relationships between school offi­ cials and local law-enforcement and first-responder agencies need to be es­ tablished long before disaster strikes. Response protocols should be clear and understood by all parties.

School Violence: Reported School Shootings And Making Schools Safer / 1 4 9

• Teachers and students need to become “situationally aware” - they need to notice and report any behavior among their peers that seem concerning, or the presence o f people who do not belong in the school at all.

• Parents need to be the main advocates pushing educators and elected offi­ cials to do whatever is necessary to improve the security o f their schools.

These steps or guidelines for making your school safes are not unknown to most nor confusing, but they do help us rethink and re­ evaluate our schools and their environments. One interesting guideline from above has to do with communicating and working with law-enforcement and first-responders. This area for proactive engagement is a must for creating that newer version o f safety in our schools. Even though there will never be the school or school system that can prevent ev­ ery conceivable act of violence, there are ac­ tions on the part of school administrators that can help discourage or reduce the chances o f a violent school attack, and that is well worth investments o f time and money.

Other insights about creating a safe school environment come from the work o f Snell and Volokh (2005). Meant to be preventative in nature, they tell us that there are actually three different types or groups o f programs that currently exist. Here are some summary remarks about each.

• School-management based programs that look within the school itself and its student body - These kinds o f pro­ grams focus on alternative schooling and integrating law enforcement within the educational programs.

• School-management programs that look to environmental modifications - These kinds o f programs basical­ ly seek to change students’ social

environment. These programs liter­ ally attempt to make schools safer through cameras and metal detectors. They also focus on after school pro­ grams and a decrease in school size.

• School-management programs that are educational and more curricu­ lum-based programs - These pro­ grams are the least drastic overall, working inside o f the existing cur­ ricular framework through “violence awareness education” and “develop­ ing appropriate life skills”.

In the end, the program a school utilizes or the manner it operates to combat violence depends on the type o f school and the type o f students attending that school. These authors do feel that incentives for good behavior and attendance as well as punishments for bad behavior are important aspects. Sound school discipline is by nature a system based on good decisions and bad decisions, but always react­ ing with appropriate demeanor and always making sure that the students understand what is expected o f them.

Student Profiling? One other possibility for creating a safe school environment, and many individuals think is a reasonable action, is to develop a school shooter’s profile. Typi­ cally, a school shooter’s profile would include ideas and signs such as students who wear all black and are always alone. It would also in­ clude students who do little talking, fail then- classes, come from dysfunctional homes, and were abused when they were younger.

The facts on profiling however, point to something entirely different. Many o f the schools shooters studied came from ideal families. They were on honor rolls, and were often enrolled in higher level classes. A few o f them were failing their classes and had disciplinary record, but only a few. Also it is important to remember that not every student who is a loner will be a killer, and that not

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every killer is considered a loner. The point is there is no clear and concise mold that these shooters can easily fit into, which of course would make it easy to pick them out of a crowd (Dolan, 2005).

This being said, there is at least one warning signal - one critical sign for which school administrators, faculty, and staff need to watch and listen. According to Dolan (2005), this warning sign is if a student talks about killing. This may even include the killing of animals and their mutilation. The theme of killing may even appear in student work assignments and artwork. Regardless of this student’s popularity status or if he or she seems to be joking, Dolan advises: Take this student seriously!

As previously stated: “In more than 80% of the cases, at least one person knew the at­ tacker was planning something; two or more people knew in almost 60 percent of the cas­ es” (Crawford, 2002, p. 64). This means that everyone needs to be listening closely to the messages that distressed students are sending.

A Final Word

School violence is something that will continue to exist. But that doesn’t mean that school administrators, faculty, and staff can do nothing to curb it. There are still proac­ tive things to keep it from happening. This paper discussed at least six “home grown strategies” (Redlener, 2006) and at least three school-management based programs (Snell & Volokh, 2005) that can be used to make our schools safer without making our schools armed camps or resorting to useless shooter profiles. Administrators need to use these ideas to establish and publicize a school safety plan for potential school shootings (Redlener, 2006).

But perhaps the simplest prevention of all comes from the ideas of Redlener (2006) and Dolan (2005). In school environments, every­ one - school administrators, faculty, staff, and

students - has the job of looking and listening closely for students who talk about killing and for school visitors who do not belong, and of notifying school administrators. Situational awareness is critical (Dolan, 2005; Redlen­ er, 2006). Administrators need to establish and publicize an open door policy for such communication.

References (2008), Understanding school violence. From Center for

Disease and Control Web site: http://www.cdc/gov/ ncips/dvp/YVP/SV_FactSheet.pdf.

Crane, G (2006). Basic facts about school shootings. From Response Options Web site: http://www.re- sponseoptions.com/basicfacts.html.

Crawford, n. (2002). New ways to stop bullying. Monitor on Psychology. 33, 64.

Cromwell, S. (2006). Stop bullying before it starts. Edu­ cation World, from http://www.educationworld.com/ aadmin/admin/adminl 17.shtml.

Dolan, S. (2005). School violence, from University of Michigan: Sitemaker Web site: http://sitemaker. umich.edu/356.dolan/who_s_a_school_shooter.

Klein, J (2007). Bully rage: Comon school-shooter mis­ ery. From The Huffington Post Web site: http://www. huffingtonpost.com/jessie-klein/bully-rage-com- mon- school b 46548.html.

Manthley, J. (2007). Risk factors in school shootings: Lack of attachment is a common thread with boys and violent behavior, from Men's News Daily Web site: http://mensnewsdaily.com/2007/09/08/risk- factors-in-school-shootings-lack-of-attachment-is-a- common-thread-with-boys-and-violent-behavior.

Redlener, E. (2006). How to make school safer. Time, from http://time.com/time/nation/arti- cle/0,8599,1543803,00.html.

Snell, L. & Volokh, A. (2005). School violence preven­ tion: Strategies to keep school safe. From http:// www.rppi.org/ps234/.

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