Proposal Page

An Educator’s Guide to Assessing Threats in Student Writing

Based on research from the threat-assessment community and drawing from the collective fields of law enforcement, law, and psychology, the authors expand on evidence-based practices to help student affairs staff and K-12 educators best assess the validity of these communications and develop intervention and management plans.

Assessing Threat in Written Communications, Social Media, and Creative Writing

Most of those who plan violent attacks communicate their intentions before the attacks via social media and written communication, either through unintentional ‘‘leakage’’ or intentionally through ‘‘legacy tokens’’ used to explain their motivations. Most attackers share this information prior to the attack as a fantasy rehearsal to gauge the reaction and level of the attention that will come to them after the actual attack.

Averting Targeted School Violence: A U.S. Secret Service Analysis of Plots against schools

Understanding cases of averted violence allows officials and researchers the ability to study where violence reduction principles worked and stopped an attack from moving from idea to action. This study included 67 averted attacks occurring from 2006 to 2018. The report stresses the importance of identifying risk factors like bullying, access to firearms, and grievances prior to criminal action.

Before the Interview: Get Context

This helpful guide offers suggestions for getting context before an interview.

Beyond the Red Flags

Early identification of red flags and at-risk behavior is a research-based best practice in the prevention of targeted violence. This article expands on this foundational concept and describes how to fill gaps in targeted violence prevention by moving beyond red flags. The authors describe five critical concepts related to behavioral intervention and threat assessment work in schools, workplaces, and communities that are commonly missed or underutilized.

Beyond the Red Flags: Overcoming Obstacles and Managing Threat

When it comes to preventing violence, it is not enough to just know and recognize the red flags. We need to advance the research-based work of collaborative teams, avoid the singular focus on target hardening or mental health diagnosis, increase the use of threat or violence risk assessments over psychological assessments, incorporate red teaming into processes to identify vulnerabilities, and commit to continuous risk assessments and ongoing threat management.

Dangerous Instincts: Use an FBI Profiler's Tactics to Avoid Unsafe Situations

Using the SMART method, which O’Toole developed and used at the FBI, we can confidently know how to Respond to a threat in any situation, hire someone who will work inside your home like a contractor or housekeeper, figure out whether a prospective employee is a safe bet, know whom you can trust with your children, and more.

Enhancing School Safety Using a Threat Assessment Model

When incidents of school violence occur, they leave a profound and lasting impact on the school, the community, and our nation as a whole. Ensuring safe environments for elementary and secondary school students, educators, administrators, and others is essential. This operational guide was developed to provide fundamental direction on how to prevent incidents of targeted school violence, that is, when a student specifically selects a school or a member of the school community for harm. The content in this guide is based on information developed by the U.S. Secret Service, Protective Intelligence and Assessment Division, National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC).

Foundations of Threat Assessment and Management

In June of 2014 a Seattle Pacific University student tackled and pepper-sprayed an active shooter on campus who had killed one person and injured two others (“1 dead, others hurt,” 2014). In April of 2015 in Washington State, a North Thurston High School teacher confronted and overpowered a 16-year-old school shooter who had fired two shots inside the high school (“Teacher Tackles Shooter,” 2015). In the summer of 2015, a heavily armed gunman opened fire on a high-speed train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris before being challenged by passengers, two of whom were US soldiers ( “The Men Who Averted,” 2015). These disruptions were heroic, incredibly brave, and saved countless lives. The right people were in the right place at the right time; they recognized the signs of the attack and made the decision to challenge the offender.

Guidelines for Responding to Student Threats of Violence

This is the only threat assessment model supported by controlled studies and listed in the federal government's National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices. An efficient and effective way to resolve student threats and reduce use of school suspension. Used in thousands of schools nationwide. Training available from the author.

Harm to Others: The Assessment and Treatment of Dangerousness

Van Brunt offers an effective way to increase knowledge of and training in violence risk and threat assessment, and it also provides a comprehensive examination of current treatment approaches. The underlying concepts and suggestions are useful for counselors, psychologists, and social workers who face these issues in their daily practice.

International Handbook of Threat Assessment

Threat assessment is a method used by mental health and law enforcement professionals to assess the risk of intended violence toward a specific target. This guide offers a definition of the foundations of threat assessment, systematically explores its fields of practice, and provides information and instruction on the best practices of threat assessment.

Rapport Building

This personal connection and attention are necessary at the very outset of the assessment. Failure to create the proper conditions and interview climate will result in increased defensiveness and decreased information being shared.

Terrorist in Training: The Role of Social Media and the Rise of Terrorism through Nationalistic White Agenda

The U.S. political landscape is increasingly divided, fueled in part by the indignant, caustic, and divisive language used in our social media and online conversations. The authors examine a subset of white males who feel marginalized and powerless as they hear messaging advancing tolerance, diversity, equality, and political correctness. This in turn has fueled vocal and strident opposition to mass immigration, rage over the disappearance of a so-called pure culture of Germans and Europeans, and an underlying fear at the prospect of losing their history and heritage. The open nature of social media has provided a safe haven for our youth to be radicalized by those espousing Generation Identity and Alt-Right ideologies, euphemisms for white supremacist thought and Nazism. The authors explore this trend through the recent terroristic actions in El Paso, Texas, Charleston, South Carolina and the related events of Oslo, Norway and Christchurch, New Zealand.

The Role of Warning Behaviors in Threat Assessment: An Exploration and Suggested Typology

The concept of warning behaviors offers an additional perspective in threat assessment. Warning behaviors are acts which constitute evidence of increasing or accelerating risk. They are acute, dynamic, and particularly toxic changes in patterns of behavior which may aid in structuring a professional’s judgment that an individual of concern now poses a threat – whether the actual target has been identified or not. They require an operational response. A typology of eight warning behaviors for assessing the threat of intended violence is proposed: pathway, fixation, identification, novel aggression, energy burst, leakage, directly communicated threat, and last resort warning behaviors.

Threat Assessment and Management Strategies: Assessing Hunters and Howlers

A successful threat management process does not necessarily depend on large staffs or huge resource commitments, but, instead, on attention to detail and a thoughtful approach. Through case studies and analyses, this volume explains the best practices for assessing problem individuals and the optimal protective response and management strategy.

Threat Assessment: A Risk Management Approach

Threat Assessment: A Risk Management Approach examines the factors that human resource, security, legal, and behavioral professionals need to understand in work violence and threat situations that disrupt the working environment, revealing the best ways to reduce risk and manage emergencies.

Types of Threat

This guide provides information on the types of threats and the elements we look at to determine the likely risk involved.

Understanding and Treating Incels: Case Studies, Guidance, and Treatment of Violence Risk

This is an indispensable guide for mental health clinical staff, social workers, prevention specialists, educators, and threat assessment professionals who want to better understand the involuntary celibate movement, assess individuals’ potential for violence, and offer treatment approaches and prevention efforts.

Violence Assessment and Intervention: The Practitioner’s Handbook

This text provides a proven methodology, grounded in the current empirical research and the authors’ experience in successfully assessing and managing thousands of cases, for analyzing concerning behaviors and potential threatening situations, and taking action in these challenging, dynamic environments before tragedy occurs.

Where the Attack Cycle Intersects the Pathway to Violence

The concept of the attack cycle is a useful framework protective intelligence practitioners can use to understand, identify and detect behaviors associated with an intentional or targeted attack. The demands of the attack cycle requires those planning an attack to conduct certain activities and the vulnerabilities to detection they leave themselves open to. This article examines how the attack cycle intersects with another model for understanding the behavior and indicators assailants exhibit before an attack, known as The Pathway to Violence.

White Supremacist Violence: Understanding the Resurgence and Stopping the Spread

White Supremacist Violence is a powerful resource for education and mental health professionals who are developing the tools and skills needed to slow the progress of the fast-growing hate movement in the United States. White Supremacist Violence gives readers useful perspectives and insights into the white supremacy movement while offering clinicians, threat-assessment professionals, and K-12 and university educators and administrators practical guidance on treatment and prevention efforts.