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IACLEA Earns COPS Office Grant

IACLEA Receives COPS Office Grant to Expand the National Averted School Violence Database to Colleges and Universities

 

The US Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office), announced September 24 an $80,000 grant to the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA) to expand the National Averted School Violence (ASV) Database to colleges and universities. The ASV Database, which is administered by the Police Foundation, identifies and analyzes cases in which planned school attacks were prevented in order to inform education and law enforcement officials about protective factors.

 

“IACLEA is excited about the opportunity to serve our members and our profession through this grant-funded project,” said Sue Riseling, executive director of IACLEA. “This work will have real impact on people’s safety.” 

In the aftermath of the horrific attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, Congress established the Comprehensive School Safety Initiative (CSSI). With CSSI funding, the Police Foundation created the National ASV Database with an initial focus on K-12 schools.

The ASV Database is an anonymous online tool for reporting “near misses” in educational settings. It allows educators and law enforcement officials to share lessons learned about the critical factors that, alone or in combination, contributed to the successful prevention of school attacks. These factors can include the presence of school-based law enforcement officers, anonymous reporting systems, behavior threat assessment and management teams, and defensive social media monitoring.

With this grant, the COPS Office is providing valuable resources to identify the protective factors at work in preventing violent attacks at institutions of higher education (IHE). It is not enough for college and university law enforcement and public safety officials and campus administrations to base their policy, operations, training, and procurement decisions on anecdotes. By expanding the ASV Database to IHEs, decision makers will have evidence that answers three questions:

  • How many potential mass casualty attacks have been averted at IHEs?
  • What were the critical factors that allowed campus officials to successfully intervene and stop the attacks?
  • Were there missed opportunities to intervene earlier on the individual’s pathway to violence?

IACLEA will actively promote the submission of averted violence incident reports. Following analysis of the reports, lessons learned will be identified and disseminated to our members and others.

For this endeavor to be successful it is imperative that colleges and universities share their near misses. To learn more about the National ASV Database and to submit an incident report, please go to www.asvnearmiss.org.

 



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