A New Era for the Enhanced Averted School Violence Database

A New Era for the Enhanced Averted School Violence Database 

This article originally appeared on Dr. Frank Straub's LinkedIn account.

I’m proud to share a new era of a project that has been close to my heart for nearly a decade.  

The newly redesigned Averted School Violence (ASV) website and enhanced database are now live.  

After the Sandy Hook School shooting in 2012, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) convened a national school safety advisory group to recommend strategies for preventing future violence in schools. One of our top recommendations was to create a national repository of cases where school violence was successfully averted. In 2016, I had the privilege of building the original ASV database with the National Policing Institute (then the Police Foundation).  In 2023, I brought the database to its new home with Safe and Sound Schools, an organization built from the same genesis and with an aligned mission to help protect every school, every student, every day. From its origin until now, the team’s goal has remained the same — study the attacks that didn’t happen, to better understand why not and how we might prevent future tragedies. 

The ASV database provides invaluable data for educators, law enforcement, and others connected to school communities who seek to identify policies and practices that are proven to prevent violence. The database also provides in-depth information regarding the students who plotted attacks — their ages, motivations, choice of weapons, personal challenges, online activities, and protective factors. Understanding this information increases opportunities to identify at-risk students and to intervene. The data also provides the opportunity to better understand the impact of school climate, discipline policies, safety and security protocols, physical security, etc. on violence prevention. 

Sadly, we have seen an increase in the frequency and the lethality of school attacks over the past decade. Access to firearms and the increase of online platforms that encourage suicide and school attacks, have had significant and detrimental impacts on children and adolescents. As we’ve seen these attacks increase, the vast majority have had a nexus to online platforms that recruit, encourage, and glorify violence. 

That’s why this work — and this tool — matters now more than ever.  

With its enhanced design, the ASV database is easier to use, more accessible to practitioners in the field, and better equipped to support data-driven, evidence-based prevention strategies. From streamlined submission processes to advanced filtering tools, the platform is built to inform smarter policies, stronger school safety protocols, and earlier interventions.  

As we move forward. My hope is that more educators, officers, researchers, and community members will turn to the ASV database, not only to learn from cases across the nation, but to share their own stories of prevention and post-incident learnings. 

Responding to an attack as it unfolds is too late. Prevention starts with understanding.  

Check out the new website and enhanced database today.