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Last month, the Office of Justice Programs’ National Institute of Justice (NIJ) published an article highlighting the creation of the first open-source catalog of U.S. school shootings.
The catalog, referred to as The American School Shooting Study (TASSS), is a groundbreaking, national database of all known shootings that resulted in at least one injury on K-12 school grounds between 1990 and 2016.
The TASSS database and associated research were developed to benefit law enforcement, school officials, and policy makers, and to serve as a foundation for future research.
Two criminology theories - the “life-course” theory and the “situational crime prevention” theory – were applied to the catalogued school shooting data. These two theories provided a framework to analyze case studies of the life courses of 252 adolescent school shooters and 102 adult school shooters. The goal of this analysis was to help law enforcement and school administrators differentiate between the kinds of school shootings that exist, ultimately leading to improved policy and response.
The research project that supported the creation of the TASSS database is summarized in a report released in August 2021, Understanding the Causes of School Violence Using Open Source Data.
This project was funded by NIJ as part of its Comprehensive School Safety Initiative, whose goals include identifying and understanding the potential root causes and consequences of school violence and its impact on school safety; and working with partners in education, law enforcement, and mental health to develop and test a comprehensive framework for school safety.
Those interested can read the feature article and the research study on NIJ’s website.
(Source: NIJ)
When disaster strikes, the need to communicate is immediate. State, local, tribal and territorial public safety agencies need reliable and interoperable communications to respond effectively.
The public safety mission requires agencies to continue the performance of essential functions and deliver critical services when events disrupt normal operations. Even if agencies’ budgets are drastically reduced, emergency services must continue.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), in partnership with SAFECOM and the National Council of Statewide Interoperability Coordinators (NCSWIC), has published the Contingency Planning Guide for Emergency Communications Funding as a resource to help public safety agencies address these critical requirements.
This expanded guide builds on the Contingency Considerations When Facing Reductions in Emergency Communications Budgets, a fact sheet published in April 2021. The new guide provides a more comprehensive look at the considerations public safety officials must weigh when planning for or facing budget reductions.
To ensure public safety stakeholders have the information they need to make effective decisions before, during, and after budget cuts, this guide provides a series of contingency considerations to justify investment in mission-critical emergency communications components. The guide focuses on five categories impacting emergency communications: personnel, operational costs, equipment, software, and a catch-all “other.” It provides detailed considerations within each category. It features real-world examples showcasing the successful implementation of contingency planning best practices.
In addition to its focus on emergency communications funding, the guide includes an overview of the continuity planning and risk analysis processes. Numerous resources are included to assist public safety agencies in assessing and mitigating risks, which decision-makers can incorporate into contingency plans.
While suggestions in this guide might not apply to every public safety stakeholder or discipline, officials are encouraged to use this document as a resource.
Those with questions are encouraged to contact SAFECOMGovernance@cisa.dhs.gov. For more information, please visit the ‘Sustaining Public Safety Communications Systems’ section of the SAFECOM Funding Resources webpage at cisa.gov/safecom/funding.
(Source: CISA)
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is offering a cybersecurity awareness webinar, Understanding Indicators of Compromise on March 29, 2022, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. EST.
Major cyber attacks have made headlines for years and the pace of threat activity faced by government and private sector organizations is accelerating. Often, the most damaging attacks reported are traced to Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs): groups of sophisticated hackers who gain entry into an unauthorized system and remain undetected for extended periods of time, allowing them to surveil and gather information, test security, or execute malicious activity without tripping network defenses.
Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) are the digital and informational "clues" that incident responders use to detect, diagnose, halt, and remediate malicious activity in their networks. This webinar provides an overview of IOCs for incident responders and those who work with them, introduces example scenarios and how IOCs can be used to trace activity and piece together a timeline of the threat, and discusses tools and frameworks to help incident responders use IOCs to detect, analyze, respond to, and report cyber threat activity.
To register, go to the following link: https://dhsconnect.connectsolutions.com/imr108-march22/event/registration.html. You will receive a confirmation email with the Adobe Connect meeting room link and calendar invitation after your registration is approved.
This webinar is intended for a non-technical audience and beginning incident responders. The webinar is part of CISA’s Incident Response Training webinar series, which is part of CISA’s Identify, Mitigate, and Recover (IMR) incident response curriculum. For more information on the curriculum and to register for future events, visit CISA’s Incident Response Training page.
(Source: CISA)
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