Overview of The Safer Campus
Utilizing Software for Safer Schools
Most solutions focused on school violence are focused on reflexive or responsive measures i.e. physical security, active shooter training, exercises, social media analysis. While these measures are critical, they are only beneficial when a violent event is pending or ongoing. To date, there have been minimal attempts to leverage the vast stores of data and information available from school systems, law enforcement, open-source, social media, and dark web data to conduct predictive analytics to mitigate school violence.
The Safer Campus is designed to leverage Blue Light’s proprietary Blue Fusion application to collect and aggregate data from disparate sources from sensitive data to open source, dark web, and social media data in such a way that an analyst can conduct simultaneous queries, or what is known as federated searches of that data.
A Proactive Response to School Safety
Everyone is aware of the impact that violence has had on our schools. Students and teachers attend classes more preoccupied with violence than ever, and parents are increasingly worried about the potential of violence in our schools.
One reason that school violence appears to be so persistent is that the normal approach is responsive and not predictive in nature. Most school solutions focus on the extremely violent acts that occur in our schools such as shootings, suicides, and bombings that represent less than 1% of the violent or abusive events that occur.
A New Approach to School Violence is Needed
Instead of metal detectors, bars on windows, and armed guards, (all of which have some utility) what if schools were able to leverage their accessible data and integrate that with technologies that enabled them to identify the much larger subset of events? Self-harm, bullying/cyberbullying, drug usage, and sexual molestation are precursors to more horrific events we typically focus on. This predictive approach can help identify students, teachers, school employees, and even parents in need. Then, you can help them get the attention and care they need to address these issues before they escalate.
Addressed Risks
Self-Harm
Suicide
Sexual Assualt / Harassment
Cyber Bullying
Gun Violence
Physical Threats
Drug / Alcohol Use
Disgruntled Employees / Parents
Why Predictive Analytics Can Help
The changes in school perspective have resulted in a demand for solutions that can more effectively address and prevent school violence. Technical solutions leveraging existing school assets, making them an asset towards increased security and safety, are becoming more attractive and desirable.
Predictive Analytics: A Proven Methodology
Predictive analytics, as a methodology, has had a significant impact on information analysis for decades. Every organization wants to know, as best possible, what the future holds. Predictive analytics is a proven means to determine that. Since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, there has been a rapid increase in the integration of tools and technologies into the predictive analytic environment. While information analysis was usually limited to papers, charts, diagrams, and other more conventional products, now it includes social media, cell phone activity, identity extraction, data searching and mining, web crawling, and even video analytics databases – resources not commonly used in the past, at least by military and law enforcement. Predictive analytics is becoming more effective as the result of the vast available amount of new data to be analyzed resulting in solutions to identify and resolve not only violence-related issues like criminal activity and counter-insurgency, but also data driven-problems as insurance, healthcare, retail fraud, and cybersecurity
Configurations of Predictive Analytic Systems
Configurations of predictive analytic systems for schools can vary from a single system used by an SRO or Law Enforcement analyst, to an incident response center, to larger intelligence and response centers. The technologies used in conducting these types of assessments allow systems to be remote, and not physically at the school. Affording the possibility of merging additional schools in a single district. Depending on school requirements and/or budget, individual systems can be tied into incident response or command centers, where during an event, local assets such as police, fire, and medical resources can be involved. Relations with local authorities, internal police forces, medical networks are other relevant factors in the configuration process. Collaborative relationships will ensure critical data (such as arrest records, health care issues related to violence) related to a potentially violent individual will be shared by these entities.
A Proven Methodology with Significant Advantages
The Safer Campus (TSC) has numerous advantages as a proven solution for addressing School Violence issues:
Affordable
TSC is a very affordable solution that can help schools of all sizes, depending on scope of installation, size of campus, and the amount of applications such as darkweb, social media or incident response tools desired. Basic packages run as low as $70,000 to $80,000 for a five-year commitment including training, license fees and renewals or $14-16,000 a year.
Minimal Impact on IT Architecture
Because TSC uses Blue Light’s Blue Fusion™ appliance, the customer’s data remains where it is. There is no need for a single database or data migration.
Compliant
TSC meets all Federal and industry requirements for cybersecurity and data security such as HIPAA, FERPA, CJIS and PCI.
Intuitive
TSC uses the same technologies that Blue Light has been training commercial, law enforcement and military analysts for years. The system is designed to be used by a dedicated, trained asset such as a School Resource Officer or analyst, but nothing more than an aptitude for technology is needed to learn how to use the platform.