Most, I am sure, are upstanding purveyors of the public trust and their responsibility to their students (In Loco Parentis).  Yet, is the incident and subsequent cover up at Penn State more pervasive in other colleges and universities across our Nation?

A recent New York Times article, On Campus, a Law Enforcement System to Itself was very revealing when it stated,

On most of these campuses, law enforcement is the responsibility of sworn police officers who report to university authorities, not to the public. With full-fledged arrest powers, such campus police forces have enormous discretion in deciding whether to refer cases directly to district attorneys or to leave them to the quiet handling of in-house disciplinary proceedings.

Speaking of Penn State, “I think we’re just on the cusp of breaking the silence,” said Colby Bruno, the managing lawyer at the Boston-based Victim Rights Law Center who specializes in cases of sexual assault on campus. “But there are a lot of very invidious ways that a school can go about squelching these reports. This is everyone’s problem; it’s not just a sports problem or a sports-icon problem. The scandal puts Penn State on the radar of the department’s Civil Rights division, which this April issued a tough letter to all 6,000 colleges and universities that accept federal money, spelling out how they must handle cases of sexual violence under Title IX of the Civil Rights Act to prevent the creation of “a hostile environment” for accusers that would violate equality of access to education.”

The obvious question is how pervasive is this issue? How many colleges and university are deliberately hiding detrimental information?  The Clery Act requires that assaults be reported and sexual assaults under Title IX must also be reported.  What will we learn about the abuses at Penn State?  We know that the Penn State police did investigate a complaint in 1998 about Jerry Sandusky and turned it over to the district attorney, who declined to prosecute. Here campus police responded appropriately and yet did the University President and the President’s chain of authority failed to follow up, suspend or expel the accused parties?

Brett Sokolow, JD, preeminent legal mind in the areas of risk, behavioral intervention and Title IX and their application in Higher Education, states the obvious, “Much is being made of the criminal acts of Sandusky and those who covered for him.  In the coming weeks and months, Penn State will be investigated for violating the Clery Act.  Lawsuits are likely, and will likely allege that the university -- and perhaps collaborating local officials – were negligent and exposed countless boys to foreseeable harm by failing to fulfill their duties to report and to act.” 

But let’s examine incident reporting systems being placed on many college and university campuses today.  First, too often these systems are merely reporting systems, they fail to track aggressive behavior.  In the case of Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech, there were over 70 different indicators that Cho might be deadly but there was not system in place to report and track these observations.  VT’s horrific experience was the watershed event that began to change campus security across the Nation. 

Further, we live in a very subjective world: what is one person’s passionate advance for affection is another’s interpretation of a near sexual assault.  Subjective references like “scary, strange, and weird” make it increasingly difficult to assess threatening behavior by Behavioral Intervention Teams, Threat Assessment Teams and/or Campus Police. Yet, each case must be fully investigated to demonstrate “due diligence” or the campus will be at greater risk of lawsuit.  Mental health counselors are also being foiled by the subjective nature of their analysis.  VT’s shooter, Cho was evaluated on three different occasions and in each case he was deemed to be “Depressed and anxious but not at risk of hurting himself or others.” 

Brett Sokolow continues, “The 40+ count indictment of Sandusky makes clear that the highest ranking officials of Penn State had knowledge of his pattern of abuse and even rape.  That is why they have lost their jobs and some are facing prosecution for failing to report the abuse as a crime to authorities.  Their failure to act can also form the basis for allegations of deliberate indifference under Title IX.”  This is an indictment against any individual in authority at any institutions of higher education that is aware of similar behavior and as chosen “deliberate indifference” as a course of action. We may not be able to eliminate all such moral indifference, however, a comprehensive Risk Management System (RMS) will provide another set of eyes and ears and greatly reduce the chance of “deliberate indifference.”

PREVENTION requires a three-part integrated Risk Management System.  First, there must be an army of eyes and ears (First Observers) that are trained to identify objective observables of “aggressive” behavior and call them in to a Behavioral Intervention Team, who are trained to appropriately respond. If every tenth person at Penn State were so trained, it is fair to speculate that there would have been enough observations of impropriety that Penn State authorities could not have hidden them.  Second, there must be Qualified Responders (BIT members) who are trained to objectively measure emerging aggression and apply the appropriate corresponding skills to maximize their result.  And thirdly, there must be objective measures of emerging aggression, whether sexual or otherwise. We would recommend our Meter of Emerging Aggression and its Longitudinal Tracking, an objective and forensic recording and tracking Risk Management System (RMS).  This three-part integrated Risk Management System is called the Campus Aggression Prevention System (CAPS).

The Florida Hospital Association and the Center for Aggression Management would like to invite you and your colleagues to attend the Corporate Aggression Prevention System free webinar and demonstration. This complementary webinar is scheduled for Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 12:00 noon EDT. During the session, you will learn how to identify aggression in the workplace and prevent it from escalating into violent and potentially deadly acts.

Across the Nation, there is an increasing fear among management due to the increase of aggression in the workplace. Managers, employees and customers are inevitably asking about the safety of their work environments. Presently, the steps taken by employers in addressing aggressive behavior are inadequate. Steps such as extensive lighting, extra security and barricading facilities might make us feel safe, but they don’t actually make us safe.

The belief that aberrant behavior, misconduct, and mental illness are reliable predictors of impending aggressive behavior (up to and including acts of extreme violence such as a workplace shooter) is misplaced. Aberrant behavior can be strange; misconduct can be disruptive and mentally ill individuals can be violent. None of these behaviors are reliable predictors of future violence and/or a workplace shooter. In fact, Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech who killed 32 and wounded 25 others, was evaluated on three different occasions and in each case he was deemed to be “anxious, depressed but not a risk to himself or others. The presence of mental illness is not a reliable predictor to a workplace shooter!”

The popular belief that Crisis Management (emergency management) is an effective tool in preventing a workplace shooter is also flawed. These tools are reactive and after-the-fact. They manage a crisis AFTER it occurs, using public relations officers and psychologists to assist with the resulting trauma. None of these ‘tools’ can help prevent aggression, violence or a workplace shooting. Nor can they provide the predictors to foresee it. 

From the Moment of Commitment (when a shooter begins firing) to the Moment of Completion (when the last round is discharged) is in as little as 5 seconds. If an employer intends to “crisis manage” a workplace shooting, they will do so over those slain during the horrific first 5 seconds! This is not effective, responsible nor defensible.

Join us and learn about this new and unique system developed to prevent the next workplace shooting. The Corporate Aggression Prevention System (CAPS) for health care achieves "prevention" through its three-part integrated Risk Management System (RMS), which includes:

• Scalable Observation by "First Observers", trained with objective, culturally neutral observables;

• Forensic Recording and Tracking using the Meter of Emerging Aggression and its Longitudinal Tracking; and,

• "Qualified Responders," trained with the skills to identify and measure emerging aggression, and apply the appropriate corresponding skill sets to prevent it from escalating. Using the Meter of Emerging Aggression, the "Qualified Responders" have the ability to longitudinally track, record and intervene before the aggressors' intentions turn hostile.

CAPS is the most effective system for achieving maximum workplace safety and security in a practical, scalable and affordable way. Come experience the Corporate Aggression Prevention System Webinar and learn how to make your workplace a safer place to work!

Lessons learned continue to demonstrate health care organizations must find better ways to deal with at-risk individuals, aggression, bullying, mental health challenges, violence, suicides and murders because the tragedies we continue to see are real…and almost all are PREVENTABLE.

The Center for Aggression Management and Awareity have partnered to bring you CAPS (Corporate Aggression Prevention System).  Join John Byrnes from the Center for Aggression Management and Rick Shaw and Katie Johnson from Awareity as they demonstrate live how your organization can empirically improve safety and security and provide your patients, employees, faculty and staff with peace of mind.

Viewership is limited, you can sign up here <https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/741800502> !

The Center for Aggression Management is very proud to announce that its partner in the development of its Campus Aggression Prevention System, Awareity’s CEO Rick Shaw, was Named 2011 Risk Innovator and Responsibility Leader by Risk and Insurance Magazine.

Are you finding it difficult to convince faculty members to take training to become First Observers of aggressive behavior in their classrooms? Let me share some thoughts that might aid in your convincing faculty members to become First Observers.  I have heard repeatedly from VPs of Student Affairs about the faculty members who contact them in a panic demanding that they remove a student immediately from their classroom and off the campus.  Of course, due to the due diligence requirement this will not happen. Upon interviewing the student the SAIT members typically finds one of two circumstances:  1) Because of the subjective nature of these accusations (scary, strange, weird) the faculty member has overstated the threat or 2) this faculty member should have reported this student to SAIT members months earlier due to the possible threat and did not.
 

Furthermore, we have been hearing from VPs of Student Affairs that faculty members are increasingly scared of the students sitting in their classrooms.  An explanation of this phenomena by Pulitzer nominated writer Lt. Col. Dave Grossman in his book “On Killing, The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kills in War and Society;” is a bit long and circuitous but important to understand.

 

We know that it is not instinctual for one human to attack another, they must disconnect, depersonalize, turn this person into an object, in order to attack them.  Because of this, at the end of World War Two, General Marshal conducted a study and found that only 15% of his soldiers raised their weapons and pulled the trigger with the intention of killing another human being.  This was unacceptable, so they changed from shooting at a “bull’s-eye” to a silhouette of a human that would pop-up, the soldier would fire and the silhouette would drop; in other words, they turned this shooting method into an “impulse shot.”  Due to this simple change in methodology, during the Korean War the shoot-rate exceeded 50% and in the Vietnam War the shoot-rate exceeded 90%. 

 

Leaping forward to the age of video games with virtual real images and sounds of death; Grossman makes the case that in the absence of a responsible adult making the important distinction between the virtual real world of the video game and the Real World we live in, are young people fully understanding the finality of death? When a gamer is shot and killed, they simply push the reset-button and continue playing. Do our young gamers fully understanding the impact of being shot or killed themselves?

 

Grossman explains that as a psychologist who lives in Paducah, Kentucky, he was one of the first on the scene when Michael Carneal, age 14, started shooting at Heath High School.  Once the first round was discharged there was pandemonium, panicked children were running in every direction.  Carneal fired 8 rounds, five were “head-shots” and the remaining were “upper-body-shots.”  This shoot-rate goes way off the charts because instinctually we shoot until our victim drops.  Michael Carneal was not shooting instinctually, he was playing his video game, which was later found in his basement and awarded extra points to players for “head-shots.”  Grossman explains that we our train soldiers to kill their enemy in a similar way and now we are generating an increasing number of students matriculating into our college and university classrooms who have lost their instinct not to kill another human being; and I would suggest that these are the students that are increasingly scaring faculty members across our Nation.

 

I am also hearing that there is an increasing number of students who are showing contempt and disrespect toward faculty who are not knowledgably about new technology.  As an example, these students want to “download” their books, not carry them from class to class.  This disrespect for faculty is getting rebuke from the increasing number of soldiers coming off the battlefield and into our classrooms.  These soldiers, who are offered free education in return for their service to Country, are older and very respectful of authority.  However, it is important to note that they, too, have long lost, on the battlefield, their instinct not to kill another human being.  It appears that all colleges and universities are vying for these soldiers and their government paid tuition. This conflict-dynamic of video-gaming younger students and older soldiers in classrooms is an increase concern to many Student Affairs professionals as I speak at conferences like NaBITA.

 

This may not yet be a dynamic on your campus.  It is my opinion that this is an increasing problem in the classroom and maybe an important and motivating message to share with your faculty members who are reluctant to learn the objective measures of aggressive behavior.

 

Our objective must always be “prevention” versus “reaction” to aggressive behavior.  The way to achieve prevention is learning that “aggression” begins well before two people are in conflict.  Like learning a new language, it is important to become fluent in Campus Aggression Prevention System (CAPS), a Risk Management System (RMS). It is my opinion that colleges and universities need to expand their First Observers so as to create an army of eyes and ears to detect aggressive behavior in an objective way and call this behavior into Behavioral Intervention Team members (Qualified Responders) to objectively evaluate this possible threat using the Meter of Emerging Aggression.

During my Campus Aggression Prevention System Webinar, I was asked about the new culture of student “gamers” and what was described as their “alternative reality.”   It is true that two individuals can, and often do, walk into a classroom discussing their accomplished kills the night before on “Call of Duty: Black Ops” video game.  The Faculty member hears, “There is no way the Famas is better than an AK47. The Famas doesn’t do the same kind of damage. It takes twice as many shots to kill someone.”  The Faculty member calls you, frightened and wants the students removed!  Let’s face it, after hearing about how scary Jarod Loughner was to his faculty, it is no wonder the faculty across the nation are on edge about any conversation that sounds aggressive.

I have two things to share with you on this matter.  First, this is why we developed the “Judicious Interview,” a method using scientific cause and effect principals in order to ascertain whether their intent is hostile, malicious and benign.   A quick questions posed to these young students will quickly ascertain that they are discussing a game and are not a threat to class or campus.

The second part of my answer is quite lengthy but due to your question it is, in my mind, important for you to understand.  Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, Pulitzer nominated for his book, “On Killing, The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society” wrote a very socially eye-opening book, “Stop Teaching our Kids to Kill.”  In this book, Grossman reveals the steady evolution of young boys and girls and their conversion from innocence and their instinctual reluctance to attack another person, through the use of video games and TV violence that erodes this instinctual reluctance.  Grossman takes us back to the end of World War Two when General Marshal conducted a survey of his soldiers to find that only 15% were able to raise their weapons, aim at another human being and pull the trigger with the expressed intend of killing another human being.  In other words, 85% were unable to attack another human. Why, because the instinct not to attack (kill) another human is so very compelling in humans.  Of course, this was unacceptable for the military so they began having their soldiers firing at silhouettes of humans, which would “pop up,” the soldier would fire and the silhouettes would drop.  The human silhouette would then “pop up” again and the soldier would again fire. In other words, the military was teaching their soldiers to “impulse shoot.”  Because of this, by the Korean War, the military’s shoot rate had increased to over 50% percent and in the Vietnam War the military’s shoot rate had increased to over 90%.  The military had by-passed a humans’ instinctual reluctance to attack or kill another human through the use of impulse shooting.  A similar circumstance is occurring with our children.  In the absence of a responsible adult, teaching these children the difference between the virtual-real world of video games where they experience the virtual real visuals and sounds of killing as they “take out” the multiples of enemies that surround them, Grossman points out how these young boys and girls are losing their instinct not to attack another human being.  If you question this, please discuss this with any astute high school teacher and now college professor. 

When we (the Center for Aggression Management) began training at colleges and universities across the Nation four years ago, we were told that professors were far too busy to take our training.  Over the past two years, we have been told by an increasing number of Vice Presidents of Student Affairs that their professors are “scared to death” of the students entering their classes; that their body language and behaviors are similar to that of sociopaths.

One university executive explained how young students entering into their classes were frustrated and angered by the inability of their professors to keep up with modern technology. They no longer wanted to purchase books at the university’s book store, they wanted to “download them online.”  This friction between professors and students is causing a real contempt, loss of respect and even rebellion by students toward their technologically-challenged professors. 

Combine this with our heroes coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers who, on the world’s battlefields, have long lost their instinct not to kill another human-being create a very interesting dynamic.  Every college and university is vying for the attentions of return veterans who have been promised by our government a paid-for education.  Soldiers, now older students, who have an immense respect for authority (their professors), are exhibiting real contempt for these younger students who show little or no respect to their professors.  We have a growing population of young student exhibiting sociopathic behavior and we have an increasing number of older students (soldiers coming home from the battlefield) who have lost their instinct not to kill another human being.  These are concerning circumstances and are expected to play out over the next several years.

So, our concern with “gamers” and their “alternative reality” is to some extent true in more ways than we may image.  We are heading for some very interesting times.   

Recently, a prominent University President shared with me his biggest nightmare was waking up to hear there had been an active-shooting on his campus. This, he said, keeps him up late at night! I believe this is a nightmare shared by many of his colleagues, and I can’t imagine what could possibly be worse.

 

Do you have a reliable method of “preventing” a potential shooter on your campus?  Crisis (Emergency) Management reacts to (does not prevent) campus violence.  Monitoring aberrant behavior, misconduct and mental illness are not reliable predictors for identifying the next school shooter.  

 

Only when you can foresee the precursors to “emerging aggression” can you, with any reliability, get out in front of and prevent a school shooting, or any act of assaultive or violent behavior.  In this live demonstration, we will show you how to reliably prevent aggressive, assaultive, and/or violent behavior. Imagine being able to declare your institution empirically safer than others in your area, causing parents and adult students to prefer learning at your institution?

 

Experience the Campus Aggression Prevention System (CAPS) Demonstration, learn how this Risk Management System (RMS) can make your campuses quantifiably safer and enhance learning by diminishing aggressive behavior throughout your institution.  Any institution that wishes to prevent the next campus shooting must have CAPS,  a three-part integrated Risk Management System (RMS) that provides campus wide trained observers (First Observers), empirical tracking and recording (Meter of Emerging Aggression and its Longitudinal Tracking) and trained response (Qualified Responders), which focuses on “prevention.”

 

Campus Aggression Prevention System (CAPS)
Risk Management System (RMS) 

Free Live Webinar/Demonstration

October 19, 2011 at 3:00 PM EST.

 

Center for Aggression Management and Awareity have partnered to bring you the Campus Aggression Prevention System (CAPS), a Risk Management System (RMS).  Join John Byrnes from the Center for Aggression Management as well as Rick Shaw and Katie Johnson of Awareity as they demonstrate live how your campus can empirically improve safety and security and provide your students, parents, faculty and staff with peace of mind and an enhanced learning environment.

 

You can register now for this free CAPS Demonstration Webinar but don’t wait; there is a limit to how many can participate. We recommend you project this webinar/demonstration on screen and share it with all your Behavioral Intervention Team members. Or pass this along to your team members so that they can sign up and evaluate this unique, scalable, affordable and most importantly, effective system.  We offer two dates and times for your convenience.

Live webinar:      Campus Aggression Prevention System (CAPS)

Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now. When:   October 19, 2011, 3:00 PM EST Register now

.

You will learn how to:

• Apply the Campus Aggression Prevention System in an effective, scalable and defensible manner.

• Use the Primal and Cognitive Aggression Continua to prevent all forms of aggression, including a shooter

• Receive anonymous/confidential reports from students, faculty, staff, parents, etc.

• Identify aggressive body language, behavior, red flags and warning signs to take preventative actions before incidents occur

• Train your prevention/safety teams and faculty to measure aggression in at-risk individuals

• Utilize the Meter of Emerging Aggression to analyze an individual’s level of aggression

• Determine the overall presumption of risk and what actions can be taken to maximize results

• Connect the dots to ensure at-risk individuals do not fall through the cracks

• Improve collaboration between counselors, administrators, law enforcement, teams, etc.

• Track and document all actions taken for legal due diligence and ongoing risk metrics

• Prevent lawsuits and maintain ongoing compliance with OCR, federal and state requirements

• Significantly reduce administrative, personnel costs and ongoing awareness and training costs

• Make your campus empirically safer and enhance student achievement/learning climate

This webinar has limited seating and will fill up quickly, so register early to ensure your seat.

EKU “Vanguard of Campus Safety” Eastern Kentucky University has implemented the Campus Aggression Prevention System (CAPS) in order to track both primal and cognitive aggression, identify acts of emerging aggression based on an objective scale and then record those acts in a software-based tracking Risk Management System (RMS). Presenters:
John Byrnes founded the Center for Aggression Management® in 1993 after concluding there were no comprehensive training programs dedicated to preventing aggression in the workplace and schools.  Campus Aggression Prevention System (CAPS) is based on years of research into aggressive behavior, and the recognition that practical tools to identify, measure, and assess specifically emerging human aggression were necessary. As a result, CAPS is the most effective Risk Management System (RMS) for achieving maximum campus safety and security in a practical, scalable and affordable way.
Rick Shaw, Awareity’s Founder and CEO, has over 25 years of experience managing risks, technology, processes, and people in large and small organizations in multiple sectors.  Rick’s research into escalating safety challenges, regulatory burdens and legal obligations have revealed alarming gaps and disconnects in situational awareness and accountability that prevent individuals from preventing.  Rick is passionate about helping school leaders better understand lessons learned so they can connect the dots and improve ongoing prevention and intervention efforts. .

In famed author, Gavin de Becker’s well researched book “Just 2 Seconds,” he chronicles the seconds between an assassin’s “Moment of Commitment” and the Executive Protector’s “Moment of Recognition” and the resulting ability of that Protector to save their client from assassination. His research is explicit; if the protector is 15 feet away from the assassin he has only an 18% chance of protecting his client.  If he is 7 feet away from the assassin he has only a 45% chance of protecting his client. Only when he is within-an-arms-length from this assailant and he is completely "in the now", can he offer a 98% chance of protection. If his mind is at all distracted, his percentages drop like a rock!

Just 2 Seconds explains the importance of getting ahead of the assassin's Moment of Commitment, trying to identify behavior that might be precursors to the Moment of Commitment. These precursors are too often subjective methods requiring considerable intuition and experience, placing the protector, the company at risk for law suits and their client at risk of assassination.

Realizing that 81% of assassinations are perpetrated within 25 feet of their victim, this is an assassin who realizes he or she will not escape -- they will either be captured or killed.  This is, by our definition, either a Combatant (murderer: 8^th Level Cognitive Aggressor) or Terrorist (murder/suicide: 9^th Level Cognitive Aggressor).   When any individual rises to the level of intention that they are prepared to give up their life a cause, their body and behavior take on very specific indicators that permit us to identify them, even before they arrive on scene.

The Center for Aggression Management's Primal and Cognitive Aggression Continua, permit the Protection Professional a significant increase in their ability to identify (foresee) the assailant and get-close-enough to the attacker (arm’s length: 98% chance of protection) to fully protect their client.  Because these Primal and Cognitive Aggression indicators are culturally-neutral and measurable they move the protector, his company and his client closer to 98% protection and legal defensibility for actions taken.

The glaring truth learned in Just 2 Seconds is the need for measurable/objective observables prior to the assassin's Moment of Commitment so that the protector can prevent, not react, to an assailants actions. 

As long as we address these issues as “bullying,” “conflict resolution,” etc. we will continue to be befuddled by reacting to them and their potential of violence.  “Conflict resolution” presupposed conflict! You are reacting to conflict, not preventing it!  “Bullying” presupposes someone exhibiting bullying behavior.  You are reacting to bullying behavior, not preventing it.  Only when we understand that “conflict,” “bullying” and any predatory behaviors are simply elements of an Aggression Continuum and that through this Continuum we can foresee conflict, bullying and any predatory behavior prior to an aggressor actually exhibiting these behaviors, can we actually prevent conflict, bullying, predatory behaviors and any subsequent violent behavior. To learn more continue reading other articles in the blog on bullying and the Aggression Continuum.

A good friend contacted me last night to share that he felt there was a disconnect (non sequitur) between the stated myth and my opinion.  Some clarification may be in order.  In my blog opinion on Myth #1 of the “5 Myths about Zero Tolerance Disciplinary Policies,” I was not expressing opinion as to whether this myth was correct rather simply that both professional groups are befuddled by their inability to address a subjective issue in objective terms.

In point of fact, Brett Sokolow, JD (NCHERM) an eminent legal opinion maker in higher education illustrates that during a 90 day period last year there were 40 newspaper headlines of crisis-level threats in secondary and higher education.  This would clearly lead me to believe that the potential of violence is still a significant issue that must be addressed.  But how should we address these threats of violence? 

As long as we address these precursors to violence as “conflict resolution,”  “bullying,” etc. we will continue to be befuddled by this potential of violence.  “Conflict resolution” presupposed conflict! You are reacting to conflict, not preventing it!  “Bullying” presupposes someone exhibiting bullying behavior.  You are reacting to bullying behavior, not preventing it.  Only when we understand that “conflict,” “bullying” and any predatory behaviors are simply elements of an Aggression Continuum and that through this Continuum we can foresee conflict, bullying and any predatory behavior prior to an aggressor actually exhibiting these behaviors, can we actually prevent conflict, bullying and predatory behaviors.

More can be learned by reading on in this blog . . .

Incidentally, you can read the complete article on the 5 Myths at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/discipline/5-myths-about-zero-tolerance-d.html

In a recent Washington Post article, writer Valerie Strauss chronicles The American Psychological Association’s task force researching the effectiveness of zero-tolerance disciplinary policies, “Are Zero Tolerance Policies Effective in the Schools? An Evidentiary Review and Recommendations.”  

Their findings are as follows:

MYTH #1: School violence is at a crisis level and increasing, thus necessitating forceful, no-nonsense strategies for violence prevention.

REALITY: Although any level of violence and disruption is unacceptable in schools and must be continually addressed in education, the evidence does not support an assumption that violence in schools is out of control or increasing. Incidents of critical and deadly violence remain a relatively small proportion of school disruptions, and the data have consistently indicated that school violence and disruption have remained stable, or even decreased somewhat, since approximately 1985.

From the above quote, we find professionals on both sides of this equation.  Should we scrap all of these measures that cost millions of dollars to every school district and a significant time away from teachers teaching and students learning because the probability of a significant event is so very remote? What then do we tell the parents of those children killed in the next shooting rampage?

Much of this controversy is due to the subjective nature of this issue.  One person’s aggression is another’s playfulness. It is only when we can measure emerging aggression can these ambiguities be clarified, addressed and defended! Defense of our actions is critical because much of these overreactions are motivated by a school district’s or principal’s desire to defend their actions. 

If these schools truly wish to prevent aggression in their schools and put themselves in a position to best defend their actions, they must implement the Campus Aggression Prevention System (CAPS Solution), a Risk Management System (RMS).

In the coming days we will address and discuss the other four assumptions and recommendations made by the American Psychological Association.  Sign up to learn more. We encourage your comments and suggestions.