USSS - National Threat Assessment Center

National Threat Assessment Center

The Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) was created to provide leadership and guidance to the emerging field of threat assessment. Specifically, NTAC will offer timely, realistic, useful, and effective advice to law enforcement and other professionals and organizations with responsibilities to investigate and/or prevent targeted violence.

Building on a recent operational study of U.S. assassins, attackers, and near-lethal approachers of public officials, NTAC will develop and provide threat assessment training and conduct operational research relevant to public official, workplace, stalking/domestic, and school-based violence. In addition, NTAC will offer its assistance to organizations interested in developing threat assessment programs.

Secret Service Safe School Initiative

As part of its mission to provide leadership and guidance in the prevention of instances of targeted violence, the National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) initiated a data-based research project to examine the incidents of school-based attacks. Since September 1999 NTAC staff have been conducting the Safe School Initiative, an operational study of 37 U.S. school shootings involving 41 perpetrators, that have occurred over the past 25 years.

Using methodology similar to that employed in the Exceptional Case Study Project, NTAC researchers are examining school shootings, starting from the incident and working backward to development of the original idea. Through this incident-focused, behavior-based analysis, NTAC researchers hope to increase understanding of the patterns of communication, planning and preparation that precede these attacks. The goal of the Safe School Initiative is to provide accurate and useful information to school administrators, educators, law enforcement professionals and others who have protective and safety responsibilities in schools, to help prevent incidents of school-based targeted violence.

Throughout this study, NTAC has worked in partnership with the Department of Education to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the current educational environment and other challenges schools are facing, and to ensure that study information would be collected and presented in a way that would be useful to those working in and with schools. The National Institute of Justice has also provided financial support to NTAC for this project.

Over the coming weeks and months, NTAC will be developing a series of key investigative questions and training materials to assist local law enforcement, school administrators, and others with protective responsibilities to appropriately identify and assess students who may pose a risk for targeted violence.

Although the study and analysis is not yet completed, a report of the preliminary findings is available below.

Publications

Threat Assessment
	Protective Intelligence & Threat Assessment Investigations "A Guide for State and Local Law Enforcement Officials" (194K)
	Threat Assessment: An Approach to Prevent Targeted Violence (243K)
	Threat Assessment: Defining an Approach for Evaluating Risk of Targeted Violence (3.2M)

Assassination / Targeted Violence Against Public Officials and Public Figures
	Assassination in the United States: An Operational Study of Recent Assassins, Attackers, and Near Lethal Approaches (5.7M)
	Protective Intelligence & Threat Assessment Investigations "A Guide for State and Local Law Enforcement Officials" (194K)
	Threat Assessment: An Approach to Prevent Targeted Violence (243K)

Targeted Violence in Schools
	USSS Safe School Initiative: An Interim Report on the Prevention of Targeted Violence in Schools (390K)
	Evaluating Risk for Targeted Violence in Schools (80K)
	Chicago Sun Times Deadly Lessons - School shooters tell why

Targeted Violence in the Judiciary
	Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences Preventing Targeted Violence Against Judicial Officials and Courts
	Assassination in the United States: An Operational Study of Recent Assassins, Attackers, and Near Lethal Approaches (5.7M)

Terrorism / Extremist Group Violence
	Assessing Threats of Targeted Group Violence: Contributions from Social Psychology (160K)

NOTE: If you have trouble downloading or printing the report, please make sure you have the latest copy of Adobe Acrobat. If you continue having problems, email ntac@usss.treas.gov with your name and mailing address and we will send you a hard copy of the report.

For more information or to request copies of the Protective Intelligence & Threat Assessment Guide please contact us with your request.