OPINION: The Psychological Impact of Active Shooter Drills, Part Two

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Another critical concern I have with the implementation of these active shooter drills, is that the deployment of such methods itself, interferes with normal human development by needlessly and artificially inserting an highly traumatic event to a child who is not even able to provide informed consent. It is my understanding that parents are not asked for consent either, nor can they choose to withdraw his/her child from such exercises. In a big way, active shooter drills, or police with guns in the hallways, definitely seem to be robbing children of their childhood, a period developmentally marked by innocence, natural joy and curiosity. While it is very understandable that “doing something” may make parents, students and staff feel safe, there is no hard evidence on the effectiveness these drills have in protecting human life. Yet, evidence is abundant on the alarming negative impact on children, parents and staff’s stress levels and mental health.

The issue represents a very simple “cost/benefit” analysis. The implementation of these drills seems at the least, reactive and definitely not congruent with reason or common sense, nor do they conform with established theories and abundant available research on child and human development. Reason alone, would advise us against desperate, impulsive reactivity. Instead, it would call us to reflect, to seek resources and to listen to evidence widely available on child development to clarify and understand what factors benefit children and teens’ mental health and development. Reason alone would also tell us that throwing egregious amounts of money to benefit those without any proven training in child development while traumatizing students as the logical result, is not the direction we need to take.

In an attempt to bypass the rare risk involved in school shootings, some parents have turned to homeschooling their children or to online/virtual classrooms. While this seems a logical alternative, it is, once again, not in keeping with general recommendations for healthy child development.

Specifically, social-emotional learning cannot happen in the isolation of a home or a computer screen; it requires peer interaction of the kind that schools offer in their classrooms. Human beings are social beings; “We need to maintain social connectivity to maintain physical health and longevity. In a Facebook era – where we are often only connected via a digital interface- it is extremely important that each of us make a conscious effort to create and maintain close-knit human bonds and a strong sense of community. Yes, any social network will benefit your health to a degree…but biologically, we need face-to-face contact and intimate human connections to engage biological systems that have evolved for millennia to preserve our well-being (Bergland, C., The Athlete’s Way, Psychology Today, 2013.)

In analyzing preceding events and factors to disasters such as school shootings, forensic researchers have attempted to predict what conditions were in place ahead of such tragedies. These factors can then be utilized for preventive purposes. In doing so however, an authority in Forensic Psychology and Faculty of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, recently stated that “We must proceed cautiously as no predictive paradigm in behavioral science is perfect, specially profiling.” (Everly, G. Ph.D., Bienvenu, J., M.D, Ph.D.,“Profiling School Shooters”, Psychology Today, 2018).

Dr. Everly adds that “The mistake that is made by observers when trying to construct a predictive profile based upon previous experiences is over-inclusion of cases, which leads to the regression dilution effect… So, to not re-create the error of regression dilution, we examine the ‘violence from within’ cases and search for certain common denominators.” Aggregating data from the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Everly has developed a seven factor model of “those who commit, or attempt to commit, mass murder in schools. This model is unique in that it is not only descriptive, but can directly lead to prescriptive actionable interventions. By actionable, we mean each factor can be used to facilitate direct supportive outreach and intervention with those who may be at high risk for committing school violence, their families, or both.”

He considers his model not as a “profile”, but as “points for consideration in a quest to reduce school violence.” His 7 factors for consideration in school shootings are:

1. The majority of school shootings have been perpetrated by males, and over 90% were active or recent students at the school. This also speaks about the students’ knowledge of the drills’ operations and thus, what to do to disable certain lockdown measures.

2. A predominant theme in the school shootings is anger and revenge: 75% of school shooters felt bullied or harassed by other students, sometimes felt unfairly treated by teachers, and seldom had specific targets other than to kill randomly to inflict the most harm.

3. School shooters tend to be socially awkward and avoidant, and often isolate with a few (if any) friends. Thus, there are antisocial tendencies present, such as detailed planning, fascination with violence, the macabre, or death; some had histories of cruelty to animals, and may have had a history of adverse encounters with law enforcement.

4. The “media contagion effect” or copycat effect, may serve as an especially powerful motivator for those who already feel anger, frustration or loss.

5. Shooters tend to have experienced dysfunctional family situations, such as lack of effective adult supervision, mentoring or oversight.

6. Sixty-eight percent of shooters obtained weapons from their home or the home of a relative. (Yes, ease of availability to firearms does matter.)

7. Shooters tend to express their frustrations and anger using art or social media posts; thus, monitoring of such media becomes an important tool in early identification of individuals at risk for committing violence.

Given the above findings and review of relevant research, the conclusion as to how to reduce school violence seems to lie in maximizing resources for the early identification of antisocial behaviors and ostracism while drastically increasing resources to reduce bullying, and to develop and strengthen early social-emotional and connectivity development. At this point, I would like to invite the reader to imagine, just imagine, what would result if we allocated $2.7 billion dollars to directly address these early childhood behavioral issues that are known to be factors correlated to this problem.

Ana Sancho Sama

Ana Sancho Sama

Ana M. Sancho Sama, PhD, Licensed Psychologist, lives in Spain.