J.B. VAN HOLLEN
ATTORNEY GENERAL

Preventing Violence at America's Schools and Colleges

Throughout the summer, I served on the National Association of Attorneys General Task Force on School and Campus Safety. On September 7, 2007, the Task Force released its report after hearing testimony from a broad range of nationally recognized experts in the field of school and campus safety.

While the Task Force report primarily focused on the security of college and university campuses, it contains several recommendations that can be applied to any school or place of employment. For example, the report recommends establishing systems whereby disturbing behavior is reported to a single individual or team with sufficient expertise and training to assess the information and take action when appropriate. By funneling information to a single repository, officials will have better knowledge about whether a student’s conduct is an isolated incident or part of a trend that may be a precursor to a large-scale incident.

The report also states that students, parents, faculty, and other community stakeholders should be made aware of the reporting mechanism and that the mechanism provide for anonymous reporting and effective follow up by trained professionals. Part of this is understanding the systems developed in a particular community, part of this is understanding the what information the law currently permits and prohibits with regard to information sharing. At the Department of Justice, this month we will publish a safe schools legal resource manual that will help faculty and law enforcement better understand current law when it comes to reporting.

The report also recommends that emergency plans be in place, and up to date. It recommends that exercises of emergency plans be conducted annually and that the exercises include faculty, staff, first responders, and other community stakeholders. Having a practiced emergency response plan serves to protect students, faculty, and responders in the unfortunate case that a school has an incident. Many of you have already been involved in the development of emergency response plans. But we need to be vigilant that all schools have plans, keep them up to date, and include the law enforcement community in the creation and testing of such plans, as well as the periodic review and updating of those plans.

These are sound recommendations for any school, college, or university – and can be applicable to large workplaces as well. We have heard a lot about school violence, but work place violence also often threatens our communities. A disgruntled employee, a mobile domestic, or a person seeking “suicide by cop” can all threaten the safety of our community work places and government facilities.

Ensuring that there are systems in place to prevent or respond to such incidents is sound public policy.

The full National Association of Attorneys General Task Force on School and Campus Safety can be found on the Department of Justice website at http://www.doj.state.wi.us/news/files/NAAGSchoolSafetyReport.pdf, or WILENET, www.wilent.org,.

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