Safety of educational and childcare facilities in 2025, preliminary results, new threats, forecast for 2026

Note: it should be borne in mind that the author lives and works in Russia, so in this article, he considers the situation on the example of his country. Measures to ensure the safety of schools, other educational institutions and places with a mass stay of children that he proposes are developed by him for use in Russia, taking into account the existing law enforcement system and the situation there.

Work is currently nearing completion on an updated version of the Handbook of Crimes and Terrorist Acts in Schools and Other Educational Institutions, which will include some corrections and additions for previous periods, as well as statistics for 2025. Taking into account the opinions and wishes expressed by colleagues, the form for submitting certain statistical data will be supplemented. I will provide more details about the new edition of the Handbook in an accompanying article to its publication.

Some preliminary conclusions about the security situation in schools and other educational and childcare institutions can already be drawn.

1. The negative trend continues.

Even for the incomplete year of 2025, crime rates have increased compared to both 2024 and the average for the most recent period (2020-2024). The increase is observed both in the total number of serious and particularly serious crimes and in incidents with signs of mass murders and terrorist acts.

2. The level of security in educational institutions remains low.

The vast majority of crimes are committed directly on the premises of educational institutions using weapons or explosive devices. This circumstance clearly indicates that the criminals entered the premises of the educational institution unhindered, carried weapons with them, and carried out their planned crime.

3. Using teenagers to carry out terrorist acts.

So far, this phenomenon is more common in Russia. Teenagers, following instructions from anonymous «curators» in messengers and social networks, commit arson or mine energy facilities, transport, cars, and police premises, as well as other law enforcement agencies. There are no exact statistics, but according to Russian media reports, 47 such crimes were committed in the first quarter of 2025. The main motives for committing these crimes are threats of violence, blackmail, and the promise of financial reward.

Although most of these crimes are committed in Russia (although there are isolated cases in other countries), this practice is rapidly spreading to other countries. Terrorist organizations and criminal communities are quick learners and closely monitor such «cutting-edge criminal experience».

Earlier, in my articles on PMC Ryodan and Red Dolphin, I expressed my opinion and made predictions that such crimes would be committed more often, that these cases were only a test and assessment of the possibilities of using teenagers, both individually and in groups, to commit crimes and terrorist acts with the possibility of anonymous, remote control of their actions. Unfortunately, as practice has shown, this experiment has been successful.

4. Dangerous precedents have been set in Nigeria.

In November 2025, within a span of four days, two organized, group, armed attacks on schools were carried out in Nigeria. In both cases, the aim of the attacks was to take hostages.

In the first case, on November 17 in the city of Magha, during an attack on a school, the deputy director was killed and a security guard was wounded, and 25 students were taken hostage.

In the second case, on November 21, in the city of Papiri, there were no deaths or injuries during the attack on the school, but more than 300 students and 12 teachers were taken hostage.

These cities are located in border states, less than 200 kilometers apart. After the first kidnapping, the Nigerian government launched a police operation and tightened security measures. However, this did not prevent the criminals from carrying out an even more daring attack four days later and taking 10 times more hostages.

Similar attacks have been carried out in Nigeria before, but not on such a scale. The last similar case (in terms of the number of people kidnapped) occurred there 11 years ago, in April 2014, when militants from a terrorist group kidnapped 276 high school students, 94 of whom have still not been released.

All this indicates that educational institutions have been and remain an easily accessible target for criminals and terrorists. They perceive children as a resource (a tool) with which they can commit crimes and terrorist acts with impunity, while remaining hundreds and thousands of kilometers away.

Forecast: The current situation clearly shows that the existing system for containing this threat is not working, and no effective system for actively countering it has yet been created. This means that in 2026, we should not expect any positive changes; at best, the situation will remain at its current level.

Author and Editor-in-Chief of the project - Roman Grishin.

#schoolsafety #crime #terrorism #victims #threats #safety #security #children #schools #college #kindergarten #university #statistics #summarizingresults #forecast #future

A unified approach to assessing safety in educational institutions

Note: it should be borne in mind that the author lives and works in Russia, so in this article, he considers the situation on the example of his country. Measures to ensure the safety of schools, other educational institutions and places with a mass stay of children that he proposes are developed by him for use in Russia, taking into account the existing law enforcement system and the situation there.

Often, after another tragedy, in expert discussions addressing the protection of educational institutions, participants use the term «security level» with various adjectives such as high, low, satisfactory, unsatisfactory, compliant, minimal, etc. However, the question arises: what exactly do they mean by this concept? What can this level be, how is it determined, and what factors influence it?
After studying publicly available information on these issues, I concluded that there is currently no unified (or even widely accepted) system for formally assessing the security level of educational facilities. Most reports containing such evaluations and conclusions are based on the personal opinions of the specialists who prepared them, relying on compliance with regulatory documents, as well as numerous guidelines, recommendations, and informational letters from the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Federal Security Service, the National Guard, and other executive and local government bodies. These documents mostly contain general, and often vague, wording, making it difficult to judge how accurate and objective the conclusions drawn from them are.

After reviewing publicly available foreign practices, I also found nothing concrete; the situation on this issue appears to be similar there, despite the clear need for such a tool.
I am not a proponent of excessive standardization in security matters, but I consider this area an exception. Due to the absence of an assessment system that could, based on formal criteria, objectively calculate the security level of an educational facility with minimal influence from the «human factor»—and since I need such a tool in my work—I decided to try creating it myself.

The table presented in this article is intended to assess the security level of an educational institution against criminal and terrorist threats. The evaluation is based on 64 criteria, covering:

- Characteristics of the educational facility’s territory and location,

- Buildings and structures,

- Presence of physical security and its specifics,

- Technical security measures and their capabilities,

- Additional active and passive protective measures.

Each item, if present and—just as importantly—fully operational, is assigned the number of points indicated in the table. If absent or non-functional (fully or partially), it receives 0 points, and so on for all items. The points are then summed to produce a final score. In addition to the total score, there are factors that negatively affect the final assessment, all of which are outlined in the «Final Score Calculation Formula» section.
When completed, the table clearly shows the level of protection of the educational institution against criminal and terrorist threats, its capabilities, and, most importantly, obvious shortcomings and vulnerabilities in the security system. Based on the resulting score, measures and costs for improving the facility’s protection level can be planned.
Furthermore, using annual assessment data for one or multiple facilities, comparative and trend analysis can easily be conducted, clearly evaluating the situation in this area for a specific school, city, region, or even country over a given period—comparing both overall scores and individual indicators or sections. This is a convenient and, most importantly, objective tool for monitoring the situation. A decrease in the score, even by 1 point compared to the previous period, will immediately indicate a worsening situation and the need for action.

Author’s note: I believe that once completed, this table should be classified as at least «For Official Use Only» (or preferably with a higher restriction level), with very limited access granted to its contents. This information is too critical, and if it falls into the hands of someone planning a mass killing or terrorist attack, it could become a «lethal weapon,» significantly increasing the number of potential victims...

read completely