A Painful Tragedy

At NCPC, we are still reeling from the tragedy at Virginia Tech earlier this week. Our hearts and sympathies go out to the students, families, and staff who have suffered. Once again, we are faced with the incomprehensible and ask ourselves what can be done to prevent this from happening again? We can start by making prevention a part of our daily lives. Colleges and universities can

• Recognize that the entire campus community – students, faculty, staff, local emergency and law enforcement personnel, and neighboring areas – must be involved in prevention. 
• Be prepared for crisis situations.  Develop and practice contingency plans based on a variety of possible emergencies.  Include student and faculty leaders who can help coordinate immediate responses.
• Develop mechanisms for communicating regularly (as well as in emergencies) with law enforcement, faculty, staff, students, parents, and the community on prevention strategies and preparedness and response plans.
• Discuss school safety and security activities and plans with parents and students during school orientation.  Provide reminders through the communications network to update staff, faculty, returning students, and others.  Consider periodic open forums to answer questions or clarify procedures. 
• Bring together the campus safety team, which should include campus and community safety and security personnel, faculty, staff, students, and parents to review, update, and strengthen prevention and preparedness plans. 
• Use crime analysis and crime mapping tools to help identify crime trends and issues on campus, along with incident analysis to help refine and improve prevention and response strategies.

Utilizing our partnership with the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement (IACLEA), supported by the Bureau of Justice Assistance and ADT Security services, NCPC is currently piloting a campus crime prevention curriculum that brings prevention and preparedness best practices to campus communities nationwide.  As part of the course pilot, four sites were selected (Duke University; Columbus (Ohio) State Community College; University of Texas Health Sciences Center (San Antonio); and California State University at Northridge) to host the three-day classes for up to thirty-five participants each.  Schools from the areas surrounding the host colleges are sending participants to the trainings.  The pilot training has 150 scheduled participants from 110 colleges and universities.  More training will be scheduled.

For campuses, a focus on prevention can help to increase student safety. For those of us who do not attend college, there is still a plethora of prevention techniques we can add to our daily lives to help keep ourselves and our families safer.

Comments

[Thaddeus Ferber]

We at the Youth Policy Action Center (a collaborative effort of more than 100 orgs to help young people engage in democracy) also struggled to figure out the best way to respond.

We decided to set up a way for citizens to send messages to their elected officials about the tragedy, as a way to say whatever was on their minds that they felt was important to be heard.

You can check it out (and send a message yourself if you are so inclined) at:

http://capwiz.com/mobilize/go/VT

[Laura Collins]

NEW SCHOOL SAFETY REPORT PAINTS GRIM PICTURE OF SAFETY IN AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

A new report entitled “The State of School Safety in American Schools” speaks of sexual assault, violent cliques and violent parents as commonplace in suburban, urban and rural schools nationwide.

The report was developed by the SERAPH Research team of SERAPH.net a group composed of educators and crime researchers. The team used interviews with 1,520 educators, 925 law enforcement officials and numerous scientific studies to create a detailed assessment of problems facing American schools.

“In 2000,” states research team leader Dale Yeager, “The United States Human Rights Projects' - National Campaign to Fight for Children asked SERAPH to create a detailed report on school safety for select members of the U.S. Congress. Because of the misconceptions about school safety by the public and many legislators we felt that releasing this years report to the public would assist in educating people about the problem.”

The report is available online at http://www.seraph.net/services_school_safety.html

The report covers many areas not traditional discussed in school safety research such as: Young Children and Aggression, Educational Philosophies and Student Aggression, Health Issues and School Safety, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Piercing and Tattoos, Girl Aggression, Sexism and School Safety, Youth on Youth Sex Aggression

“The issue of school safety affects everyone in society. Juvenile crime, domestic violence, poverty are all tied to school safety issues. The report will provide factual information to the public so that they can understand the complexity of the problem and provide information to legislators so that they can assist schools in preventing and managing school safety issues.”

[Brandon Bryn]

The American Academy of Pediatrics has also posted a lot of really good resources for students, teachers, parents, and schools. Find them at http://www.aap.org/featured/resourcepage.htm.