SCHOOL SHOOTINGSPreventing Violence in Schools: Encouraging Students to Report Threats

By Doug Irving

Published 14 March 2023

One of the most consistent findings in research on school shootings is that someone knew an attack was possible and didn’t report it. A recent RAND study looked at how schools can better encourage students to come forward when they see or hear something that should concern them. Its top recommendations: tip lines, training, and a lot more trust.

The gunman was carrying a pump-action shotgun, a machete, and three Molotov cocktails when he pushed open the doors of his high school in Colorado and opened fire. He hit one girl, fatally wounding her, before turning the gun on himself.

His anger was no secret at the school. Classmates later described him as a “monster when he is mad,” ready to “snap one day.” But at least five students had another piece of information that they never reported before the shooting. They knew he had bought the gun.

Someone knew. That is one of the most consistent findings in research on school shootings: Someone knew an attack was possible and didn’t report it. A recent RAND study looked at how schools can better encourage students to come forward when they see or hear something that should concern them. Its top recommendations: tip lines, training, and a lot more trust.

“The main thing is making students comfortable reporting, ensuring they have somewhere they can go if they have concerns,” said Pauline Moore, a political scientist at RAND who led the study. “That was the underlying theme that we heard from almost everyone we talked to. If kids feel supported, if they have someone they can trust, they’ll come forward.”

Building a Trusting Environment
In 2021, the U.S. Secret Service published a review of 67 averted school plots. It found that in 94 percent of the cases, the would-be assailants had made their intentions known, often through comments to their friends or social media posts. Yet in more than two-fifths of the cases, people who knew of the threat failed to report it—even when it was a direct warning of what was to come.

Researchers at the Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center—a federally funded research and development center operated by RAND—have been working with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to develop tools and guidance to help make schools safer. Their most recent report provides a blueprint for schools to establish more-effective, more-responsive student threat reporting systems. It draws on decades of research on preventing school violence and interviews with three dozen people involved in school safety.