Perceptual expertise is typically domain-specific and rarely generalises beyond an expert's domain of experience. Forensic feature-comparison examiners outperform the norm in domain-specific visual comparison, but emerging research suggests that they show advantages on other similar tasks outside their domain of expertise. For example, fingerprint…

The American School Shooting Study (TASSS) is an ongoing mixed-method project funded by the National Institute of Justice to catalog US school shootings. It has amassed data based on open sources and other public materials dating back to 1990. This brief presents new insights from TASSS, diving deeper into the database's potential to examine the…

Gun violence is a critical public safety concern in the United States. In 2006 California implemented a unique firearm monitoring program, the Armed and Prohibited Persons System (APPS), to address gun violence in the state. The APPS program first identifies those firearm owners who be-come prohibited from owning one due to federal or state law,…

We examined the effects of acute alcohol on eyewitness memory for a simulated armed robbery under laboratory conditions. Alcohol and placebo participants viewed a slide series showing a target male taking a laptop from a helpdesk assistant, either on loan or at gunpoint. Following a brief retention period, participants responded to…

Scholars theorize that the nature of school gun violence varies across school settings. Yet, there is a lack of statistical research testing this idea. This study investigates contextual factors associated with six forms of school gun incidents (N = 1,238) over a 40-year period (1980-2019) in the United States. To conduct the analyses, school,…

This report provides the most recent national indicators on school crime and safety. The information presented in this report serves as a reference for policymakers and practitioners so that they can develop effective programs and policies aimed at violence and school crime prevention. Accurate information about the nature, extent, and scope of…

This study examined differences in reported campus criminality on selected community college campuses in the years between 2005 and 2016 representing the years preceding and succeeding the implementation of Mississippi's 2011 concealed carry legislation. Each campus included in this study is a public-funded community college in Mississippi. Using…

In this quasi-experimental field study, bar drinkers (0.00-0.23% blood alcohol content) viewed a photographic sequence in which a male took a laptop from a helpdesk assistant, either on loan or at gunpoint. Following a brief retention period, participants answered 20 multiple-choice questions about the male, his actions, and details of the scene,…

School delinquency in public elementary, middle, and high schools has decreased in recent years, but is still a major issue that has negative mental health and academic implications for adolescents. Although research has focused on both individual-level and school-level explanations of school delinquency, it is not yet clear which macro-level…

We examined the role of exposure duration and scene complexity on the weapon focus effect (WFE). Memory for the mock crime was affected more by a weapon than an unusual but nonthreatening object. Threat reduced correct identifications when the event was short but not long; duration of the event did not interact with unusualness. Additionally, we…

The National Center for Education Statistics collects data on crime, violence, and safety in U.S. public schools through the School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS). This Data Point report uses data from the 2017-18 SSOCS to examine the formal policies schools have in place to outline officers' roles and responsibilities and whether these…

School safety is a key feature of the learning environment. Research suggests if students perceive their environment as unsafe they will face a myriad of possible detrimental consequences. Using qualitative interviews, we explore the factors most consistently identified by students as important in their feelings of safety. We examine whether the…

School violence plays a significant role in shaping a school's culture and climate, which can have an impact on the participation and performance of learners in secondary education. In many instances, school violence can hinder the educational aspirations of learners. This paper investigates the impact of school violence on learners through the…

Although school violence statistics indicate that schools are safe places, anxiety over school shootings continues to influence school safety reform to the extent that security measures in American public schools include the arming of schoolteachers. Furthermore, not only have youths' perceptions of school security been relatively unexplored,…

The 2020 Texas Educators' Needs Assessment Regarding School Safety and Victims Services included responses from educators across the state of Texas regarding school safety. This needs assessment generated data that provided researchers with the unique opportunity to analyze the school safety issues in Texas (Fuller et al, 2020). The purpose of the…