In This Corner
By Lynne Kinnucan
TAKING
CRISIS INTERVENTION HOME
Dear Readers,
The stream of school shootings since Columbine has left a bitter question: since circumstances all but rule out intervention, are there really any tools for prevention?
The stream of school shootings since Columbine has left a bitter question: since circumstances all but rule out intervention, are there really any tools for prevention?
The
response from schools, communities and law enforcement has been yes – and all
of them have focused on what the FBI calls “law enforcement’s most powerful
nonlethal weapon”: communication.
These school shootings
have one characteristic that separates them from
other acts of school violence: the shooter does not suddenly snap; rather the
shooting is meticulously planned over a period of time. The Secret Service has found that in more
than 80 percent of critical incidents, the shooters explicitly revealed their intentions to their peers. Far from being
"invisible," most shooters were already of concern to people in their
lives.
And this is the critical
second part: students know, but they do not talk.
Prevention, then, means
taking the fight to the front lines: the students and their parents. It means getting teenagers to talk to
parents, something that is difficult in the best of times, but perhaps more so
in this situation, when there are significant reasons for their silence.
In
the following article, Breaking the Code of Silence, Dwayne Fuselier,
clinical psychologist and retired FBI hostage negotiator, and researcher
Jeffrey Daniels take us straight to the heart – and art – of getting people to
talk.
From
dealing with bullying to preventing school shootings, communication is the
first and best prevention we have. If we
can find a way to bring these strategies home, if funding and training now
devoted to aftershock and trauma can be expanded to prevention, then perhaps we
will have found the means to forestall these tragedies and save precious lives.