3 Chapter 3 – State of School Safety and Security Literature
Overall State of the Current Literature
In looking at the relevant literature related to this project, there has been plenty written specifically in regard to active shooters and school shooting events in the wake of the various high profile school shooting incidents over the past decade. Much of this literature tends to focus at the tactical level with specific tactics, techniques, and procedures for school officials, teachers, law enforcement and first responders. While useful in that regard, much of this does not include an overall focus on comprehensive school safety and emergency preparedness and much of it is anecdotal and not validated by rigorous research. There are a number of reports by various U.S. federal agencies (Dept. of Education, DHS, FEMA, USSS, etc.), as well as foundations and non-profits which do look at the overall issue of school safety and preparedness and these begin to establish a foundation for establishing the framework and assessment tool envisioned in this project (Bergeron, 2013).
As previously mentioned, there are efforts in a number of states to begin to establish school safety standards, but to date, there has not been one agreed upon set of recommendations beyond the individual state level, much less one that is validated by peer reviewed research. There currently are roughly half a dozen different assessment type tools and standards documents, but they tend to vary widely in their scope and approach. Additionally, within the area of campus safety and security there are a number of professional and trade magazines which routinely deal with the topic and tend to cover recent trends and developments, but the approach in these tends to be specific event, topic, or issue focused.
In terms of comprehensive and holistic works dealing with overall school safety and security, there are only a few books dedicated to the topic and these tend to be authored by ‘experts’ in school safety, and/or law enforcement who also make their living doing consulting work on school safety and security so much of their information is proprietary and is only shared with the paying customers and clients. While there are somewhat more articles in terms of peer reviewed research related to school safety, much of this deals exclusively with school shooting incidents and in-school violence rather than comprehensive and holistic school safety and security.
There are also a number of other publications that deal with overall safety and preparedness outside of the school environment that may prove informative, useful, and applicable to this project as well and indeed these were specifically considered in the formulation of the S4 standards that are being used in this research effort. An initial listing of publications that were reviewed in pursuit of this project is contained in Appendix A and was updated throughout the conduct of this research project.
Categories of School Safety and Security Literature
Overall, when it comes to the review of school safety and security literature, the following categories emerge as to topical and functional areas of analysis:
School shootings and active shooter incidents: As would be expected given the intensity and volume of media coverage following each and every school shooting or other active shooter type incident over the past ten years, this category tends to dominate the published work related to school safety and security. While informative, most works in this area tend to be narrowly focused and are overwhelmingly dominated by works which deal with tactical and pragmatic aspects of mostly the response to school shooting and active shooter events. The few research based works that do exist in this area tend to be primarily case study based and are designed to inform the training and reaction protocols of law enforcement and school faculty, staff, and student response to an active shooter situation. There are some useful ‘lesson learned’ type works which address active shooter incident prevention techniques and measures that have been incorporated into the S4 standards.
School Safety and Security Practices and Procedures: For lack of a better term, this second most populated category could easily be referred to as the ‘Good Ideas’ category, which contains numerous works related to both the previous and following categories. Much of these works have emerged in the wake of school shootings and other school incidents and events. Many of the works in this category try to highlight and specify best practices, techniques, and procedures with government and private organizations, school safety consultants, and even school systems themselves all presenting what they see as the best solution to specific problems related to school safety and security. While there is much informative information in this category, in many cases it tends to be narrowly focused and sometimes fragmented in regards to overall school safety and security.
Physical Security and Technology: This particular category is closely related and overlaps the above two categories and tends to be populated primarily by works authored by commercial entities, trade groups, consultants, and others who in many cases make their living within the physical security technology industry. This is far from an indictment of the works of these groups and individuals, since they have contributed a wealth of knowledge, understanding, and solutions to school safety from the wider field of safety and physical security, but many of these works are very specific to particular vulnerabilities, perceived needs, and technology products, sometimes without consideration for how these technologies are integrated to an overall school safety and security environment.
Government and Organizational Reports: This category contains a number of useful works that have been informative in the design, formulation, and implementation of this research project thus far. Likely as a result of federal funding resulting from the No Child Left Behind Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) (http://www2.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml), many of the works in this category primarily contain research and assessments related to in-school violence and bullying as well as school crime statistics. As previously mentioned, this category also includes more comprehensive school safety reports for those states that have implemented their own school safety and security standards programs such as Texas and Virginia.
Peer Reviewed Research: Along with the following category, this is one of the sparsest categories in terms of comprehensive school safety and security literature. The articles that do exist tend to be overwhelmingly focused on in-school violence, crime, and school shootings and tend to try and determine causation and contributing factors to such events versus their prevention. To date, the author has not found peer reviewed research specifically related to comprehensive school safety and security standards as envisioned by this research project.
School Safety and Security Assessment: This final category of literature while scant in volume has likely been the most useful in terms of the preparation of this research effort. In particular, the assessment tools used by the states of Texas and Virginia as well as the work of Trump (2011), and Brunner and Lewis (2009), have been particularly useful in the formation and validation of the S4 standards and the overall design of this research effort. Since the initial start of this research there are also similar nascent efforts discovered by the author in Idaho (http://www.sde.idaho.gov/site/safe_secure/) and an emerging national level effort by the National Clearinghouse_for_Educational_Facilities_(NCSF)_(http://www.ncef.org/pubs/pubs_html.cfm?abstract=mitigating2) which both show particular promise for this project.
