Dear readers and colleagues! I am pleased to announce
that work on the fifth edition of the Reference Book has been completed. The
file has already been posted on the website and is available
for download. The new edition includes statistics for 2025, as well as
additional data for previous periods, corrections of some errors and
inaccuracies in previous editions, and a total of about 30 revisions and
additions.
New data systematization and
analytics tools
In addition to the existing ones, several new
evaluation parameters have been added to the comparative and dynamic data
analysis tables:
1. In the «Total victims» section, in addition to
information about those killed and wounded, a subsection «Kidnapped» has been
added, and the section «Involving hostage-taking» has been supplemented with a
subsection «For the purpose of kidnapping.» This is related to crimes that
occurred in November 2025 in Nigeria, where two organized, group, armed attacks
on schools were carried out within four days of each other. In both cases, the
aim of the attacks was to kidnap a large number of students and staff from
these educational institutions (in both cases, more than 300 people were
kidnapped, most of them children) for subsequent use as hostages in order to
obtain ransom or satisfy political or religious demands from the authorities.
This section will include information on the number of
people kidnapped at the time of the crime.
2. In category «2. Crimes falling under the criteria
of mass murder and terrorist attacks,» an additional section «Suspect fled the
scene» is created, with information about crimes where the suspect managed to
leave the scene after committing the crime, and they were detained or found (in
cases of suicide) outside the educational institution they attacked, or the
crime remained unsolved.
Statistics in this section will allow (albeit not
fully) an assessment of the level of protection of educational facilities from
criminal and terrorist threats, as well as the responsiveness of law
enforcement agencies. If a criminal was able to freely enter an educational
institution, carry weapons, commit a crime, and then leave the scene
unhindered. Such facts, and especially the increase in the proportion of such
incidents (in comparative and dynamic analysis) in the total number of crimes,
give grounds for certain conclusions.
3. In category «2. Crimes falling under the criteria
of mass murders and terrorist attacks,» an additional section «Suspect committed
suicide (including attempts)» is created, with information about crimes in
which the suspect committed suicide, either at the scene of the crime or within
24 hours after it.
A separate block of analytics on suicidal cases among
suspects remains; this section is created solely for the convenience of
tracking and comparing general statistical indicators.
Indication of information about attempted crimes
This
issue has been discussed repeatedly, especially after the release of version
4.0, with opinions both for and against this parameter being expressed. As a
result of the discussions, it was decided to include this information in the
category «2. Crimes that fall under the criteria of mass murder and terrorist
attacks» starting in 2025. Only those incidents where the crime has reached the
stage of immediate execution but, for reasons beyond the perpetrator's control,
the perpetrator was unable to carry it through to completion will be included
in the list.
For
clarity, let's look at two examples of such attempts in 2025:
January 10, Kursk, Russia: an attempted attack
on a secondary school using cold weapons and incendiary mixtures. The suspect,
a former student of the school, put on a mask to hide his face and prepared weapons
(a hammer, knife, and incendiary mixture), used the hammer to break a window,
and entered the school premises. However, his actions attracted the attention
of a security guard, who pressed the alarm button and called the police, and
also began to pursue the suspect. The criminal dropped the bag with the weapons
and incendiary mixture and fled the scene before he could harm anyone.
September 17, Ostrogozhsk, Russia:
attempted attack on a secondary school with cold weapons. The suspect, a former
student of the school, had previously posted threatening messages on his social
media page, prepared weapons (a knife and a hammer), brought them to school,
took them out, shouted verbal threats, and attempted to attack those around
him, but was quickly neutralized by a teacher and security guard before he
could harm anyone.
Such
attempts will be included in the list and taken into account, but in cases
where the crime was prevented during its preparation, such incidents will not
be taken into account.
Information about the presence of security guards at educational facilities
under attack
This
is a good analytical tool, but unfortunately, at the moment, this information
will only be published in part, mainly data on incidents that occurred in
Russia, where this feature of such crimes is highlighted in media publications
and official releases from law enforcement agencies.
Foreign
media pay little attention to this circumstance, and it is rarely mentioned in
publications and releases. I tried to make inquiries myself, but they all went
unanswered. I do not know the reasons for this, especially since this
information is not classified.
Statistics for 2025, tools for data analysis
Due to
the fact that five-year periods are used for comparative and dynamic data analysis,
and in 2025 such a period is just beginning, three new analytical tools are
introduced for the convenience of visual representation of the situation, to
compare statistics for the current year:
1.
with the same period of the previous year, i.e., in this case, with 2024;
2.
with the average indicator of the previous period, in this case, with the
period 2020–2024; to calculate this indicator, the arithmetic mean value for
each estimated parameter for the five-year period is used. Example: the average
number of crimes committed with the use of firearms in the period 2020–2024, we
take the values for 5 years, 2020 – 3, 2021 – 8, 2022 – 21, 2023 – 15, 2024 –
14. We add them up to get 61, divide by the number of years – 5 – to get 12 (if
the value after the decimal point is 5 or less, we round down; if it is 6 or
more, we round up, in this case to 2). The average percentage of such crimes is
calculated in the same way.
3.
With the average value for the entire reporting period starting in 2000, the
calculation of the indicator here is similar to the calculation for the
previous period.
This
will be presented in the form of a table, where you can clearly see the
dynamics of the situation for each individual indicator.
That's
all for the changes and additions.
As new
data comes in, work will begin on additions to the current edition and, at the
same time, data collection for the sixth edition. I would appreciate any help
in working on the new edition. You can find out how to do this in the final
part of the reference book, in the section «Prospects for new editions.»
My
goal is to create a useful, reliable, informative, easy-to-use, and, most
importantly, publicly available reference and analytical tool for researchers
and specialists in ensuring the security of schools and other educational
institutions from threats of various types and nature.
Once
again, I would like to thank everyone who helped me collect new information,
clarify and correct previously published data, form and edit sections, and do
other work on the reference book.
Sincerely.
Author
and editor-in-chief of the project – Roman
Grishin
#SchoolSafety
#SchoolSecurity #SafetySchools #school #kindergarten #university #college #analytics
#crime #terrorism #handbook #statistics #criminology #security #safety
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