Since 1980, 137 school shootings have accounted for 297 fatalities in the United States, the majority of them children. During that time the number of school shooting incidents increased each decade.1
As debates over how to address this trend continue on Capitol Hill, there are a number of technologies that local law enforcement agencies and jurisdictions can use to better protect and monitor school students, employees, and visitors.
New technologies and innovative applications of technology are progressing school protection beyond the normal conventions. Options that should be very familiar to law enforcement—heavy-duty locks, metal detectors, video cameras—are still very much in play, but their new iterations are so advanced that they can assist and enhance public safety efforts in ways not imaginable outside of Hollywood just a decade ago.
