By Richard J. Bonnie and Rebekah Hutton, Editors

Active shooter drills have become a standard practice in nearly all U.S. schools, yet their potential impact on students and educators has received limited attention. School Active Shooter Drills: Mitigating Risks to Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Health explores how these drills are conducted and how to reduce potential harm while supporting school safety. Developed by a committee of experts in education, school safety, public health, pediatrics, child and adolescent development, psychiatry, psychology, neuroscience, public policy, and criminology, this report provides an in-depth review of current practices and offers guidance. The report provides suggestions for implementing practices that promote prevention and preparedness while supporting well-being, and foster learning environments where students and staff feel safe, capable, and supported.

School Active Shooter Drills finds that while drills aim to enhance preparedness, they often vary dramatically in intensity and design, from simple safety walk-throughs to unannounced, high-simulation events. Such inconsistencies can heighten anxiety, distress, and confusion, especially among vulnerable student populations. The report underscores that developmentally appropriate, trauma-informed practices are essential, and drills involving realistic simulations or deception should be avoided entirely.

School Active Shooter Drills outlines actionable recommendations for state and local policymakers, school leaders, researchers, and federal agencies, including banning harmful practices, supporting staff training, ensuring equitable inclusion, and increasing access to mental health resources. This report also calls for national guidance and sustained research to strengthen the evidence base and help schools foster safe, inclusive, and supportive learning environments so that schools not only prepare students and staff for emergencies but also protect their mental, emotional, and behavioral well-being.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; Board on Children, Youth, and Families; Committee on Law and Justice; Committee on the Impact of Active Shooter Drills on Student Health and Wellbeing. 2025. p253.

By Harry Annison, Kate Paradine

In this article we sketch a vision that might guide academic and third sector collaboration. We do so by drawing on a project that involved collaboration with a range of stakeholders, in order to stimulate ongoing discussion about how academics and the third sector might work together to seek positive change. Our findings show that there are keenly felt challenges, but also a sense of resilient optimism. A key finding among our stakeholders was a sense that there is an absence of an overarching shared vision, which was experienced by many of our respondents as consequential. Therefore, in the spirit of constructive provocation we set out such a vision, which was collaboratively developed with our respondents: opening a dialogue, rather than providing a conclusive position.

Howard Journal of Crime and Justice, May 2024 (early view)

By Jue Jiang

This research provides a rare yet much-needed gender perspective on authoritarian legality in China, drawing upon sentencing and punishment for the crime of rape. First, several controversial cases – cases extensively discussed in the media or online – are reviewed to identify the attributes that triggered the controversy. Four categories of cases were selected, based on four sexual relationships embodying various power dynamics between the offender and the victim: public official and citizen/sex worker; husband and wife; adult and child; caregiver and dependent. A search was then made for “like cases” using these attributes as keywords in the China Judgments Online database. Finally, a qualitative analysis of these cases was carried out, in particular of the judicial reasoning provided by the judges, to explore how these controversial cases are handled by the judiciary, and the implications of this on the interplay between gender, sex, sexuality and authoritarian power in the context of authoritarian legality in China. This research argues that the criminal justice system in China embodies and reinforces a particular gendered order and “sex hierarchy,” instrumentalised by the state to maintain its authoritarian power.

The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy series Law and Authoritarianism. 2023, 69pg