Arming Teachers as a Response to School Violence: Using a Risk Assessment Model to Understand Student Perceptions

ABSTRACT

Arming teachers remains a divisive issue in the United States. Since one goal of this policy is to improve perceptions of safety, it is important to understand how arming teachers impacts students. Using survey data from six Midwestern school districts, we apply Ferraro’s risk assessment model to explore how individual and school conditions impact feelings of safety if teachers carry guns in school. We find perceived risk of victimization decreases feelings of safety if teachers are armed, which is driven by self-reported and vicarious victimization. Self-reported delinquency, in contrast, is directly related to feeling safer if teachers are armed. We conclude that arming teachers may mitigate efforts to help students feel safe in school by increasing fear among those with victimization experiences.

KEYWORDS:

• Arming teachers
• fear and risk
• target hardening
• school safety
• student perception

Acknowledgments

This research was supported in part by Award No. 2015-CK-BX-0021 awarded by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Justice.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute of Justice [2015-CK-BX-0021].

Notes on contributors

Timothy McCuddy

Timothy McCuddy is an assistant professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Memphis. His research focuses on youth crime and violence, school safety, and how technology affects social processes related to crime and delinquency.

Faraneh Shamserad

Faraneh Shamserad is a PhD student in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri – St Louis. Her research interests include examining the causes and consequences of immigration and school safety policies, including racial and ethnic disparities in the implementation and effect of such policies.

Finn-Aage Esbensen

Finn-Aage Esbensen is Endowed Professor Emeritus, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Missouri—St. Louis.