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Campus violence preparedness of US college campuses

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Abstract

This study investigates the impact of the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings on college emergency procedures of US college campuses. College administrators and security officers from a cross-sectional representative sample of 161 US colleges participated in an online survey in 2008–2009 academic year. Whereas a majority of college campuses reported having appropriate emergency procedures in place, only 25 per cent (n=40) of the surveyed campuses agreed that students understood the emergency procedures of their campuses. Another 25 per cent (n=41) of the campuses reported that if a dangerous crisis situation occurred, the entirety of students and employees would likely be notified within 5 min. Data indicate that a substantial number of colleges across the nation do not realize the importance of emergency drills and do not engage in campus-wide practice of them on a regular basis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Health Science, Indiana University, 1025 E. 7th Street, Bloomington, 47405, Indiana, USA

    Dong-Chul Seo, Mohammad R Torabi & Earl H Blair

  2. Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland, USA

    Jaesin Sa

Authors
  1. Dong-Chul Seo
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  2. Mohammad R Torabi
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  3. Jaesin Sa
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  4. Earl H Blair
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Correspondence to Dong-Chul Seo.

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Seo, DC., Torabi, M., Sa, J. et al. Campus violence preparedness of US college campuses. Secur J 25, 199–211 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/sj.2011.18

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