Introduction

Abstract

Over the last ten years in the United States, there have been hundreds of school rampage plots that have successfully been averted (Daniels et al. 2007; O’Toole 2000; Trump n.d.). During this same period, however, American schools have prioritized discipline and security in a manner which has exaggerated the extent of school violence as a social problem and dramatically transformed public education as a social institution. In the wake of numerous highly publicized multiple-victim school homicides that occurred during the 1990s, American schools responded with massive changes to their disciplinary policies and security apparatuses. With the intention of preventing future rampage shootings, schools implemented increased security through school resource officers (hereafter, SROs), cameras, locked doors, and lockdown procedures, and expanded discipline via zero tolerance policies with mandatory arrests and school exclusions. This cluster of practices, which Hirshfield and Celinska (2011) have collectively referred to as “school criminalization,” represent the fairly recent but pervasive incursion of law enforcement personnel, ideology, and technology into the school setting. In addition, many school officials and academics responded with a risk assessment approach by focusing upon the identification of potential school shooters through warning sign check lists, behavioral profiles, and threat assessments.