The issue of school safety has been interrogated as school shootings have occurred multiple times each year in the United States. This devastating reality has captured the attention of many throughout the United States. School leaders have implemented strategies to increase school safety, including the creation of practices to deter shooting…

Scholars have explored ways in which school shooting events have impacted students' perception of safety. However, less is known on whether the effects of school shootings are stable across time and event. This study uses data collected through the Delaware School Survey before and after three school shootings, Columbine (1999), Virginia Tech…

In this essay, Drew Chambers argues that the implementation of modern security technology in American schools (also known as target hardening) may do more harm than good, especially when such technologies represent the primary mode of risk responsiveness. In using technological measures to reduce risk, schools may inadvertently undermine both…

A joint report from the National Center for Education Statistics and the U.S. Department of Education concluded that children and youth were 87 times more likely to die by murder or suicide outside of school than in it. How does the country weigh their awareness of the overall safe character of U.S. schools against the compelling desire to prevent…

The recent increase in school shootings has brought about an urgency to renew efforts to understand and reduce them. In this article, the Division for Emotional and Behavioral Health reviews what is known about school shootings, including data related to incidence and shooter profiles. In addition, we describe responses to shootings, accompanied…

The study examined provision of security facilities and security personnel service delivery in Universities in Cross River State, Nigeria. Three research questions and one hypothesis guided the study. The ex-post facto design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised 440 security personnel while the sample size was 400…

Following high-profile school shootings, policymakers and educators seek ways to prevent such shootings, but there has been little research on school-level responses in the immediate aftermath of such events. This study examines how school-level security measures and practices changed after the 1999 Columbine shooting using a nationally…

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…

Gun violence in schools has had a destructive ripple effect in many communities across the United States, invoking activism from both parents and the actual survivors of gun violence. By creating a new and comprehensive archival research database that analyzes 30 years of gun violence that has occurred on U.S. school properties, the current study…

The Federal Commission on School Safety has proposed a number of school security measures, including that trained teachers be allowed to carry concealed weapons at school. Prior to implementing such a policy, legislators and school administrators would be well advised to understand the potential effects of the policy on students. The current study…

February 14 marked the 1-year anniversary of the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and April 20 marks the 20th anniversary of the tragedy at Columbine. Much progress has been made over the last 20 years in the understanding of threat assessment, crisis preparedness, and the importance of increasing…

One of the most pressing concerns on college campuses today is student safety. To date, nine states have passed Campus Carry legislation and more states may follow. Texas was the eighth state to pass Campus Carry legislation. Specifically, in the 2015 Legislative session, the Texas Legislature voted to allow License to Carry (LTC) holders to carry…

This article summarizes the accomplishments of research on school safety in the past quarter century, identifies important gaps, and indicates promising directions for further progress. Although closely related, there are distinguishable bodies of research on physical and psychological safety. Physical safety research concerns the prevention of…

National debate over law enforcement in schools has largely overlooked student reporting of violent threats to school resource officer (SROs). This statewide assessment of Virginia high school students (n = 99,358) found that the majority of Black (64%), Hispanic (72%), White (71%), and other racial/ethnic identity (71%) students agreed the SRO…

Recent incidents of school-based violence have resulted in the widespread implementation of school safety strategies across the United States. While research on these strategies has grown over the past decade, there is little understanding about their collective influence on indicators of school violence. Using data from the 2007-2008 School…