By Mark Wolf
If society wants people to “see something and say something” when they observe a potentially dangerous or threatening situation, they must be provided with safe and confidential ways to do it.
That was the message Susan Payne delivered to the “Can Violence Be Prevented?” session on the first day of NCSL’s Spring Forum.
Payne is a veteran law enforcement officer and founding executive director of Safe2tell, a Colorado hotline that allows people to report any threatening behaviors or activities endangering themselves or someone they know. By state law, all safe2tell reporters are unknown (83 percent of the reports are transmitted electronically).
Payne, director of Safe Schools for the Colorado attorney general, said 93 percent of perpetrators of targeted school violence exhibited concerning behavior before the attack and that in 81% of those incidents, someone knew it was going to happen but failed to report it.
“Bystanders are the key. They are the witnesses,” said Payne. “We have to encourage them and educate them with a way to speak up when someone’s life is in danger.”
Schools and communities need to do a survey on the climate of the school to determine if they are safe, said William Woodward, director of training and technical assistance at the University of Colorado’s Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence.
“If your schools aren’t doing climate surveys, it would be like you going to the doctor and him saying, ‘You look kind of peaked today, take four aspirin. Before you can go into a school and say this program will fix it or that program will fix it you have to have a survey,” said Woodward, who also shared research on risk factors for adolescent problem behaviors.
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