Making Sense of Campus Shootings: Policies, Practices and Prevention

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Making Sense of Campus ShootingsPolicies,
Practices and Prevention

• James Alan FoxThe Lipman Family Professor of
  Criminal Justice, andProfessor of Law, Policy
  and Society
• June 25, 2008

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April 16, 2007
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The Death Toll Rises
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The Deadliest
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An Undeserved Stage and the contagion effect
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Identify with Victims or Perpetrator?
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Some Facts from Fox
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Far from the Greatest Peril

• On average, 10 college students are murdered
  annually on campus
• 1,000 college students commit suicide annually
• Thousands more deaths annually due to substance
  abuse

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Safety First?

• Is your campus safe? Newsweek, August 20-27
  2007
• Parents ask about lockdown
• A new college selection criterion

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Campus Lockdown The latest catch-phrase

• From correctional nomenclature
• Very few episodes include multiple locations
• Timeliness

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A New Instructional DVD for Students
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Special Back to School Apparel
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Active Shooter Lockdown Drills

• ECSUs blunder in its active shooter exercise
• Training is fine, but do not involve the students

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Lesson from the Airlines
We can learn from airline passenger preparedness
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The Few Bad Apples Theory
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Profiling is Problematic

• No clear-cut profile
• Predicting rare events is virtually impossible
• False positives
• Only hindsight is 20/20
• Cast a wide net
• Many are obviousand then may be too late
• May intensify feelings of persecution
• Problem may be structural or situational

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Mental Health Services
Ratio of Campus Mental Heath Counselors to FTE Students Ratio of Campus Mental Heath Counselors to FTE Students
2007 average 1969-to-1
Recommend level 1500-to-1

• Increase in counseling staff and budgets over
  past year
• Student-to-counselor ratio still falls short

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Student Centeredness

• Student centeredness is more than just words
• The caring need not wait until a tragedy occurs
• Training faculty and staff to handle difficult
  people and situations

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Who are the Rampage Shooters?
Date School Shooter, Age Role at School
November 1, 1991 University of Iowa Gang Lu, 28 Graduate student
December 14, 1992 Simons Rock College Wayne Lo, 18 Undergraduate student
January 26, 1995 University of North Carolina Wendell Williamson, 26 Former law student
August 15, 1996 San Diego State University Frederick Davidson, 36 Graduate student
June 28, 2000 University of Washington Jan Chen, 42 Medical student
August 28, 2000 University of Arkansas James Easton Kelly, 36 Former graduate student
May 17, 2001 Pacific Lutheran University Donald Cowan, 55 None
January 16, 2002 Appalachian School of Law Peter Odighizuwa, 42 Former law student
October 28, 2002 University of Arizona Robert Flores, 40 Graduate student
September 2, 2006 Shepherd University Douglas Pennington, 49 Parent of students
April 16, 2007 Virginia Tech Seung-Hui Cho, 23 Undergraduate student
February 8, 2008 Louisiana Tech Latina Williams, 23 Undergraduate student
February 14, 2008 Northern Illinois University Steven Kazmierczak, 27 Former graduate student
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The Broad View

• Increased emphasis on student centeredness and on
  upgrading counseling and support services may not
  eliminate the already low likelihood of a campus
  shooting. Regardless, it will go a long way to
  enhance the well-being of thousands of students.
• Many of these strategies are the right thing to
  do, even though sometime done for wrong reason.
• The only option for students seeking a 100
  guarantee for eliminating any risk of being
  victimized by a campus shooting.

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A Risk-Free Education
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Thank You!