The document being highlighted this week focuses on workplace and campus safety. The title is FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. This is a monthly bulletin that focuses on different issues. In the February 2010 issue, violence on campus and in the workplace was discussed. There were several articles that talked about different aspects of safety. It talks about recognizing campus values and making sure people are not being scared away from reporting possible threats. Sometimes threats go unreported because fear of what will happen to the person making the threats. No one wants to get someone fired or expelled for what may turn out to be a misunderstood comment or weird humor. The campus community must understand what the policies are and how they work if the community is to feel comfortable coming forward with concerns. Communication is important among the different departments responsible for safety. If information that can be shared is not, it may not be noticed that one person has made several threats and could be very dangerous.
One article deals mainly with threat assessment. Many organizations are forming threat assessment teams to help prevent or manage incidents. The article tells what these teams can and cannot do. For example, they can try to assess the dangerousness of a threat but they cannot predict violence as only the perpetrators know for sure what they will do. These teams gather information from all sources and put it together to see what might be done before any violence occurs. The article gives examples of how these teams work and the successes they have had.
Campus safety is an issue all year long but this time of the year when so many students are heading back to class, it comes to the forefront of many discussions. This issue of the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin has good, useful information to assist with this important part of campus life. This item is available for checkout. It's sudoc number is J 1.14/8: 79/2.