Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

An interesting approach to crime control and reduction is the ability to prevent crime before it occurs. Put differently, how do we identify and intervene in the life of a criminal before he or she engages in crime? By looking at characteristics of criminals and criminal behavior, common factors emerge which researchers and public safety professionals have labeled as ‘risk factors’ that may be associated with criminal offending later in life. Given this development, several risk assessments have been created as means to evaluate, intervene, and redirect offending, while providing needed services to the individual offender. Historically, risk assessments were developed to address certain behaviors- violent crime or substance abuse, for example. In the latter half of the 20^th century, the field of risk assessment advanced tremendously, particularly in assessing risks in certain populations and with certain behaviors. With expanded media coverage of high profile events, school safety and targeted violence has been a growing concern. Due to their rarity, applying traditional risk assessment models proved difficult in predicting or preventing targeted violence in schools. Thus, the threat assessment model emerged as a fact-based tool to assess the potential for and to intervene in instances of targeted violence. This practice was modified and is now being implemented as a tool to assess threats in the K-12 environment. This paper will discuss risk assessments and threat assessments, detail the application of threat assessments in the K-12 environment, and argue for the expanded implementations of threat assessments in schools along with civilian training in warning sign detection.