DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) and the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3) provide a resource to raise awareness of potential risk factors and indicators for targeted violence in schools, raise awareness of the likelihood that students may have been exposed to multiple risk factors during the COVID-19 pandemic, and provide resources to become an engaged bystander as part of a comprehensive local prevention framework.
DHS I&A and CP3 believe that the threat of targeted violence in schools will remain elevated as more children return to school full-time. Even after this elevated threat subsides, prevention of targeted violence should remain a key goal of schools and the communities in which they are located.
CP3 works with local communities to create local prevention frameworks that prevent individuals from radicalizing to violence and intervene with individuals who already have – or are in the process of – radicalizing to violence. In most incidents, an individual who has carried out an act of terrorism or targeted violence had identifiable potential risk factors prior to radicalization to violence and observable indicators once they radicalized to violence.