Threat Assessment

About the program

The Boston Threat Assessment Team is a collaboration project with the Boston Public School Department, Boston Police Department, and United States Secret Service in providing a threat assessment process for the Boston Public Schools. The program provides school administrators and law enforcement officials guidance in incorporating the threat assessment process for investigating, evaluating, and managing targeted violence into strategies to prevent school violence.

The Boston Threat Assessment Team was formalized during school year, 2003/2004. It is funded by the Boston Police Athletic League (PAL) and the Boston Public Schools. Boston PAL supports the Boston Threat Assessment Team due to the high number of threats made by students towards other students, faculty members, and the entire school community.

The Threat Assessment Team consists of Boston Police, School Police, and the Counseling and Intervention Center Staff. The Team assists schools in assessing threats and offering some guidelines to follow when dealing with these types of situations. The main focus is to help schools differentiate between a student who is making a threat and a student who posses a threat. The Team is available for immediate response if necessary.

Whenever a threat is made at school, the administrator will call the Counseling and Intervention Center. After consultation a decision will be made as to whether or not to call the Boston Police for further investigation. If the Boston Police are called, a detective would then go and interview the student and possibly make a home visit if necessary. Once the detective gathers all of the information, the Counseling and Intervention Center, the police and the home school will determine what the next intervention will be. Some interventions include assignments to the SMART program or Counseling and Intervention Center, referrals for psychological evaluations, or possibly pressing charges.

The Team is also available to conduct trainings and workshops with schools and other organizations to help schools and agencies develop their own threat assessment teams to learn how to assess who actually posses a threat and what steps to take when a threat or other information of concerns comes to light that can lead to violent related incidents.