Campus Violence Has Surged

More stress for the country’s colleges: Incidents of violence on American campuses have spiked over the past two decades, according to the new report “Campus Attacks,” just released by the Secret Service, FBI, and Department of Education. The comprehensive study analyzed 272 incidents of "targeted violence" at colleges and universities over the last century, and discovered that more than half of all attacks have occurred within the last 20 years. The report connects the rise in violence to larger student bodies and greater coverage by mainstream media. The study also found that attacks occur most frequently between April and October, and attackers are overwhelmingly male. One-third of the violence relates to intimate relationships, with the remaining attacks resulting from "retaliation," obsession, and romantic rejection. The study was released on the third anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre; it’s considered a groundbreaking piece of research, reports The Washington Post, in the new field of threat assessment, developed in light of the tragic VT event.