Threat Assessment and Management in Higher Education in the United States: A Review of the 10 Years Since the Mass Casualty Incident at Virginia Tech

The April 16, 2007 mass casualty incident at Virginia Tech had an immediate, significant, and enduring impact on approaches to campus safety in the United States. In the aftermath of the incident, there were numerous campus safety reviews, not only at Virginia Tech, but across the Commonwealth of Virginia, across the nation, and around the world. Those reviews by campus administrations, state and federal government agencies, professional associations, victim advocacy groups, and law enforcement bodies, resulted in hundreds of campus safety recommendations. Many of those recommendations were intended to improve reactive aspects of physical security, emergency preparedness, law enforcement response, and emergency notification. However, several recommendations addressed preventative approaches to enhance campus safety and bolster institutions’ capabilities to identify, investigate, assess and manage actual and potential threats of violence to the campus community. This article will summarize the changes in approaches to behavioral threat assessment and management among institutions of higher education in the United States, drawing on the lessons confirmed and learned from the Virginia Tech incident and those that followed through various research efforts.