Security throughout the public world is becoming an ever-increasing necessity. This includes the arena of Social Media. Probably especially that. In all of these facets of social life, there is increasing school violence, sexual abuse, sexting, and bullying. And these are only some examples. There are many more examples of security threats to our public. It is making something like behavioral threat assessment more necessary than ever. While Social Media probably presents the most security threats, the most problematic is the security threats at our schools.

A long string of school shootings in recent years has made school security a major concern for the educational community. Many schools have set up heightened security plans and have personnel fully learned in threat assessment. There is also an increasing number of security companies cropping up who specialize in helping schools organize and implement full security measures. Alleviating students fears in this way and giving them a more enhanced feeling of security will help them to concentrate more fully on school academics and social lives.

Threat assessment is key to this. When fully trained in it, schools are more fully equipped to intercede before the violence such as another school shooting takes place. Being trained in this will make it no surprise when an individual does attempt it and personnel will be ready because they will already have their eyes on that person. It makes it even easier that these prospective shooters almost always tell one to three people what they are planning to do. Girded with all of this knowledge, trained personnel are more fully equipped to stop school violence before it happens.

Threat assessments have been shown to be very helpful in aiding schools in implementing a zero-tolerance discipline policy. It is an effective security violation deterrent because it helps identify individuals related to the school who are a threat to the school, it helps determine if any of their verbalized threats are serious or not, and it helps form prevention plans based on those findings. These positive results of these assessments are two-fold: It obviously helps keep the school safe and it also helps pinpoint these potential problem people and to thereby help them work through their issues.

School Shootings are not the only things that can be prevented by behavioral threat. It can also help identify and prevent problems related to suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, physical abuse, dropping out, and criminal activity. Installing the necessary threat assessment procedures means being very strict with them and continually abiding by all the high standards they demand. But at the same time, wisdom, discretion, and common sense must be highly utilized. Although it is often the case, sometimes people who behave very suspiciously pose no threat whatsoever.

People training in this form of threat assessment should consider whether a suspected individual is responsive to any of their efforts to help him or her. Primarily they should consider if the individual has made any violent threats and can carry out these things. Such matters should be taken extremely seriously.

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