Connecting the dots!
A discussion on preventing acts of targeted violence.
Too often I hear people say “we have to connect the dots” to prevent terrorism or acts of targeted violence. Guess what, they aren’t wrong and in fact they could not be anymore right! But when pressed on what connecting the “dots” looks like, the conversations tends to take an awkward turn into some unrecognizable dialogue and obscure analogies. You hear things like ”well, we need to review the actions taken during this event in order to better understand where things went wrong” or “we are working on breaking down the barriers that seem to exist”. It is easy to say that we want to connect the dots, but do we really have any idea what it means to connect the “dots”?
What dots are we supposed to connect? Where do we find these dots? Why these dots? When do these dots get connected? Who connects the dots and whom are the dots connected to? How do we start connecting the dots? Overwhelmed yet? Again easier said, right. This is just a small sample of the questions that need to be asked when trying to connect the dots.
Slow Down!
I think we need to step back and revisit or even perhaps “re-imagine” how we look at preventing acts of violence. “Connecting the dots” is critical, but we need to approach this differently. It is easy to connect the “dots” in post incident reports, looking backwards we are usually able to piece together all of the key pieces of the events and who was involved. Investigators are able to conduct interviews, track down people who had some bit of information on the suspect, develop a pattern of concerning behaviors that were observed. Community members may be reluctant, but will come out and share their stories of concerning behaviors they witnessed or felt uncomfortable about, teachers or co-workers often open up about conversations they had with the suspect but felt weren’t quite to the level where police needed to know. The bottom line is this, if we can connect the “dots” in post incident reports, then we have to ask ourselves this: what makes it so difficult to connect the “dots” before hand?
We have to understand that there are going to be dozens of questions that need answered before we can start to connect any “dots”. If you enter this process thinking that it is going to be quick, you are mistaken and therefore will likely miss key data points. So where do we or should we start? Let’s start with understanding what a “dot” is.
What is a Dot?
You can’t connect a “dot” if you don’t know what a “dot” is! Sounds obvious but this can be a confusing issue for a lot of people or teams. So what is a “dot”? Simply put, a “dot” can be any of, but not limited too, the following:
A concerning behavior like bullying, verbal abuse, physical abuse, absenteeism, tardiness, etc..
Stressors like financial hardships, relationship issues, work or school demands, etc..
Grievances such as poor performance reviews, poor grades, jealousy, the need for revenge, etc..
These are just a few examples of the types of “dots” or as I refer to them “warning signs” that someone or some group may be at-risk of escalating up the pathway to violence. The good news is that if you can learn to recognize these and other potential warning signs, then you are on your way to raising your level of awareness on this issue and can start to gain a better insight on how to connect the “dots”. We will do a deeper dive on this aspect of connecting the “dots” in an upcoming blog or podcast episode later as there is more to uncover.
Once you have a good sense of what the “dots” or warning signs are, you can begin to evaluate what the next steps will be. This process is very much like a real connect the “dots” picture exercise, you can’t skip numbers or steps as that will cause confusion or produce delays or worse, false conclusions.
Which of the following below represents your best chance to properly connect the “dots”? If you guessed 3, congratulations! As you can see in option 1 you only have some of the “dots” and no numbers, your chance of success is limited as you are missing a good bit of information. In option 2 you have all the “dots” but no numbers, so you may get close to proper completion but you may have errors as finding the starting point may be difficult. In option 3 you have all of the dots and numbers so your chance of success is optimal because you have all of the proper information. If you apply this same concept and imagine that the warning signs of violence are the “dots”, you can see that there is a process you need to follow. However, you will not have an outline to start with and this will likely impact your ability to succeed. So how do we get around that? Great question!
1
2
3
Getting around the fact that you will not have an outline to start with when it comes to preventing acts of targeted violence and connecting the “dots” means that you need to build the outline as information comes in. Perhaps easier said than done, but not impossible, you just need to re-imagine the outline. The outline you are looking for will be in the shape of patterns, trends and occurrences. How you analyze those patterns, trends and occurrences will help you form that outline and develop the picture you are trying to paint or the puzzle your trying to build. I know you wish these people or groups who are at risk would just come out and verbally say here I am, and here is what I am going to do. But if you step back and change your perspective, you will see that they are telling you through their behaviors and actions that they are escalating on their path to violence.
Collecting the “dots”.
Now that we have covered what a “dot” is and some of the basics to connecting the “dots”, let’s look at collecting the “dots”. Every step of this process is critical, but let’s face facts, if you have no way to collect information or to have information shared with you for you to collect, then you will not be successful. Information collection and gathering does not simply occur in a incident management system, don’t be fooled by that. This is not an attack on I.M.S, but an incident management system manages the information you put in it, there is a need for this, but I.M.S is not designed to connect the “dots” you have collected. Because of this, information can and will get lost in that silo.
Collecting the “dots” has to come from not only your school, work, or house of worship but from the community at large as well. Think about this, when we saw the tragedies of San Bernardino, Las Vegas, Parkland and other acts of targeted violence, where did the Media and Police go to find information on the attacker(s)? Give up, the community. They talked to neighbors, friends, family and others to help piece together who the suspect was and other needed information to build a case and understand what had lead to the act of violence. That information did not magically appear after the tragedy, it was there before hand, we just weren’t collecting those “dots” in the proper manner. Understand this, many of the “dots” will not be in the form of an illegal activity, so do not disregard any concerning behavior as it should be collected and put into proper context.
One off, or part of a bigger picture?
Collecting information or “dots” can be tricky as bias often enters the equation. This bias can lead to information being discarded as we tend to look at things through a “singular event lens” rather than looking for a pattern or trend. Imagine someone instigates a verbal altercation at work, this altercation is recorded and stored in the I.M.S. A week later the same person is involved in a physical altercation outside of work in which the Police are involved. A month later the same individual is overheard talking about “getting back” at someone at school, but this is not reported. This pattern continues for several months at various places throughout the community with some reports filed or kept in-house specific to that location where the event occurred. This individual may have ten or more separate occurrences, but only when we look at them collectively do we see the bigger picture. If we collect these “dots” in a way that allows us to see the bigger picture, we can begin to see that someone or some group may be at-risk. Looking at these occurrences as “one-offs” can be detrimental and counterproductive, it is imperative that we keep the big picture in mind when analyzing these occurrences and that are able to collect from multiple places.
Please understand that there is a lot more to this and we are just scratching the surface on this and other topics, there is only so much I can cover in one blog post. Feel free though to follow along as we will dive into various aspects in upcoming posts or podcasts.
A Comprehensive Framework
Securable Alternatives Targeted Violence Prevention Framework ModelRegardless of what we know are warning signs of violence or how good we are at collecting and connecting pieces of information, if we have no framework for this process, then our chances for success are diminished. A comprehensive framework must be in place for any successful outcome to occur, but is has to be more than just a framework in name only. A framework will consist of several integrated aspects, be able address multiple areas of concern and posses the capability to allow for complex questions to be answered.
There are so many blanks that need to be filled in when it comes to working in a framework model. But it is not just about filling in the blanks, it becomes what information gets connected to each other and from there how do we build an effective threat assessment investigation that can actually produce prevention based outcomes or allows us to intervene before an act of violence is carried out.
There are six fundamental questions that need to be answered in every case: Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. It may seem simple to state these questions, but in the end they can be some of the most difficult questions to answer. These questions will never change, but how we choose to answer them will determine if we react to an act of violence or if we prevent and act of violence. Too many times we have answered these questions in post incident reports only to discover that the information found was already known by someone at some point in time leading up to a tragic event. Several of these tragic events have been at schools, houses of worship, business and public spaces and may of the locations had threat assessment teams in place, along with other security countermeasures. What was not in place was a framework to bring all of the elements together to streamline the process and allow for a methodical investigation of the “dots”. Due to to many gaps in systems, siloed information and disconnected data points and communications, vital information was lost, unconnected and overlooked. I am fully aware that we can’t prevent every act of violence and I am not going to suggest that we can, but we can certainly make a more concerted effort. Is it so bad to want or believe that? Perhaps I and a few others, are crazy enough to believe prevention is possible, but it was Steve Jobs who said “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” Don’t know if we will change the world, but maybe we can change your mind!
Why is this so important?
I do not need to remind anyone that we are living in tough times with Covid-19, and while the vaccine may improve some conditions over time, the long term impact of stress, isolation, grievance and psychological and mental illness will be felt by nearly everyone in some manner at some point in time. Research, conducted by the U.S Secret Service, shows that there is often a spike in violence after an extended period of time away from an environment. If we look at the research and the data that is out there, I don’t think there is any question that we are going to see that many people will be on a pathway to violence. Our children are suffering being away from school, people are suffering being away from work, what will happen when they return? Will they bring the stress, isolation and other challenges with them? Maybe, though I hope not. If they do, will you be ready or prepared? Do you have a framework to help you identify issues quickly, or will you be caught off-guard? The “dots” are out there scattered in our communities, it is up to us to provide a way to collect that information and “Connect the Dots” and take action!
If anyone would like to continue this discussion, please feel free to reach out. I am always happy to engage in a constructive conversation that can help move the prevention effort forward.
Thanks
Written by Jason Destein - Thoughts and viewpoints are my own!
Copyright Securable Alternatives 2021.