Stop the Violence

Student, Teachers, and Officers Preventing (STOP) School Violence Program

Overview

The STOP School Violence Act of 2018 seeks to improve school security by providing students and teachers with the tools they need to recognize, respond quickly to, and prevent acts of violence. Both the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services offer grants to improve security within our Nation's schools and on school grounds through evidence-based programs.

How BJA Supports the STOP School Violence Act of 2018

BJA provides grants to states, units of local government, and Indian tribes to:

• Train school personnel and educate students on preventing student violence against others and themselves.
• Develop and operate anonymous reporting systems for threats of school violence, including mobile telephone applications, hotlines, and internet websites.
• Develop and operate:
  • School threat assessment and intervention teams that may include coordination with law enforcement agencies and school personnel
  • Specialized training for school officials in responding to mental health crises
• Support any other measure that, in the determination of the BJA Director, may provide a significant improvement in training, threat assessments and reporting, and violence prevention.

Evidence-based Strategies and Programs

Award recipients must use evidence-based strategies and programs such as those identified by the National Institute of Justice's Comprehensive School Safety Initiative. Specifically, the STOP Violence Act requires that any programs, practices, technologies, or equipment funded by BJA demonstrate a statistically significant effect on outcomes based on:

• Strong evidence from at least one well-designed and well-implemented experimental study
• Moderate evidence from at least one well-designed and well-implemented quasi-experimental study

Promising evidence from at least one well-designed and well-implemented correlational study with statistical controls for selection bias.