Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, as a chair of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) Task Force on School and Campus Safety, today issued a call to address gaps in school-safety policies and federal and state laws that leave students vulnerable to violence in their schools and on college campuses.

The chairs of the bipartisan non-partisan task force, Lynch and Attorney General John Suthers of Colorado, along with the 25 other panel members, today released a 14-page report that addresses threat assessment, protocols for dealing with the mentally ill, information sharing among law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders, and crisis-response planning and communications.

“The expectation that our students would learn in safe, secure environments that was for so long a part of our shared, national psyche has been shattered by Columbine, Jonesboro, Virginia Tech, and other eruptions of violence that occur with a disturbing frequency in schools and on campuses across America,” Lynch said. “We hope our report stimulates local and national dialogue among policy makers, educational administrators, law enforcement, and parent-teacher organizations at the start of the new school year.”

The panel’s recommendations include:

· All schools and colleges should establish a system whereby disturbing behavior is reported to an individual or multidisciplinary team of individuals with expertise and training in risk assessment who can evaluate the information and put into action an immediate response. Students, parents, faculty, and other community stakeholders should be made aware of the reporting mechanism. · State and federal lawmakers should examine privacy laws in an effort to remove barriers to effective information sharing. Appropriate state and federal agencies should clarify how information, including mental health records, can be shared under existing state and federal laws. · States should modify or enhance state laws to ensure that all information that is relevant to federal firearms laws is shared with the National Instant Criminal Background System, especially for individuals disqualified from purchasing or possessing firearms for mental health reasons. The US Department of Justice should provide clear guidance to jurisdictions on the scope of relevant records. · State legislators should mandate that all schools and colleges receiving state funding create, maintain, and update emergency management plans.

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NAAG Task Force Report calls for reforms to increase school safety September 6, 2007 Page 2 of 2

· Colleges should implement a multi-point, redundant communication system that leverages existing technology and provides information to as many people as possible as quickly as possible. · Every school and college should have mechanisms in place to allow for the anonymous reporting of perceived threats by students or faculty. The system should include educational outreach and effective follow-up by trained professionals. · States should continue to implement and expand bullying prevention measures, including those directed at cyber bullying.

Lynch said the 27-member panel was convened to update a 1999 report issued by NAAG to address issues surrounding school violence. He said that while much of the information in the 1999 report remains relevant, the ad hoc group was created to update recommendations and to determine what issues have been brought into sharper focus as a result of the tragedy at Virginia Tech, in which a graduate student from Cumberland, Daniel O’Neil, was one of the victims.

Lynch, who has visited at least a school a week during the academic year since being elected to office in 2003, proposed the Safe School Hit List legislation enacted in 2004. This law mandates that Rhode Island schools develop safety plans regarding potential threats to the school environment. This year, he proposed the Lindsay Ann Burke Act, the new law mandating that each school district incorporate a dating violence component in its health-education curriculum in grades 7-12 and develop procedures in response to any incidents taking place on school grounds.

Lynch is currently president-elect of NAAG and will assume the presidency of the organization in the summer of 2008.

A copy of the Task Force’s report is attached to electronically transmitted versions of this press release and also is available on AG Lynch’s website at www.riag.state.ri.us.

Along with chairs Lynch and Suthers, the attorneys general of the following states were task force members: Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Guam, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

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