Today I want to look at just one aspect of the Zimmerman/Martin case: the "hoodie" that Trayvon Martin reportedly was wearing when he was identified by George Zimmerman as a potential threat to the neighborhood. The idea that this common item of clothing could be perceived as marking someone as a threat has sparked hoodie protests all over the country and even one by a member of Congress.
Sadly, there is a campus threat assessment model that actually identifies wearing "hoodies" as a sign of aggression. That comes from the National Behavioral Intervention Team Association (NaBITA), an organization that has classified regular speech and conduct as a potential threat.
NaBITA and its sister organization, NCHERM (the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management), have engaged a lot of resources advising universities about how to watch out for potential threats on campus. In a 2009 NaBITA advisory report, various kinds of speech and behavior are put on a nine-level scale, with a student at level 9 being the next mass shooter. At levels 1-3, the following behavior is identified:
This aggressor becomes more distant and argumentative, demonstrating a lack of understanding and empathy. They conceal and deceive as to their motives and intent. For example, professors may notice this distancing in the classroom through averted eye contact or wearing concealing clothing, such as hoodies or long coats. (p. 5, emphasis added)
I think that happens in pretty much every single SGA election. I think much of this rubric is alarmist rather than reasonable.
As for hoodies, George Zimmerman was studying criminal justice at Seminole State College until the school expelled him. It would not be surprising to see NaBITA's threat assessment model in a course these days, now that universities and government bodies are putting everybody's questionable behavior in threat databases.
We don't know exactly what happened on the night when Trayvon Martin was killed, and we don't know whether or not Zimmerman was taught to fear hoodies. But I am dismayed that the risk management industry is training law enforcement and college officials to see a hoodie or "harmful debate" as a potential threat.
Follow Adam Kissel on Twitter: www.twitter.com/adamkissel
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You left it open-ended.
I'm not pro-Zimmerman, but I am pro-truth in journalism.
NaBITA puts forward a very reasonable construct that we know helps students and saves lives – far more reasonable than FIRE has put forward in cherry-picking hot-button language as if it exists in a vacuum. We have and will always welcome the debate, as the goals of protecting students and their rights are common to all of us.
Regards,
Brett A. Sokolow, Esq.
Executive Director, NaBITA
www.nabita.org
Continued...
Campus behavioral intervention teams save lives every day on college campuses, which is why they have become the prevalent model for caring and preventive intervention. In NaBITA's risk assessment tools, concealing clothing is one of many variables that college administrators look to, and a hoodie alone would never trigger action by a behavioral intervention or threat assessment team following our methodologies. Kissel seems to dislike risk factors, but we must acknowledge that almost every school shooter has concealed their weapons as they approached their targets. To ignore concealing clothing in the right context — together with clear signs of attack-related behavior — would be foolhardy. The key is adequate training, which Zimmerman did not have.
Continued...
Having worked as a bouncer in an extremely rough GANG-FILLED north Philadelphia neighborhood, and moved on as a security professional, one of our policies was that no headwear was allowed in our establishment for SPECIFICALLY this reason. In a heavily gang-infested environment, it is a clear sign of contempt for authority, which, if allowed to persist, often devolves into violent encounters with other patrons.
We enforced the rule for no headwear to establish a system in the mind of our patrons to understand that rules must be adhered to. And, what you, the author, as an ignorant liberal don't understand is that headwear used to (all the way back to medieval times with knights and helmets, and in other cultures with turbans) be an indicator of being "under arms", and when you entered the home of another, you took your hat off as courtesy to show that you had no hostility towards your host. We still see it's usage in the military, in which an individual standing a duty post is required to wear their hat while armed. We as individuals from western civilizations also have it built into our cultural identity, although some more than others. Someone wearing a hoody in itself is not a potential threat, but the manner in which they wear it can be and often is.
I am on the other side of the hill in regards to age.
Hoodies are just about all you can buy in the shops if you are looking for casual wear and sometimes even upmarket designers use them especially with fabric that is knit and inclined to drape.
Most importantly, hoods up *in class* are indicative that the student just feels like hiding, avoiding, and being left alone. In a hallway, it's an issue because it doesn't allow campus cameras to document the faces or heads of people--male or female---- that security may need to see. This is the big reason that hoods up and hats on are not allowed within a school building.
Finally, I'd add that there is a difference between wearing a hoodie up on the street and wearing one up in class. The author has glossed over the difference, yet the report is clearly speaking about the use of such clothing on purpose IN CLASS as an anti-social security blanket.
Who in the USA does NOT own a hoodie? It's a staple of clothing for teens and college kids. Nobody thinks they are bad or deviant.
When I was in school, the no-hats rule was about respect (agree or disagree about what hats mean) rather than security cameras, since there were no such things in my school. Likewise in graduate school. Anyway, the implication of your point -- that hoodies are inherently unsafe because you can't identify who is wearing them -- supports my point that such fears are overblown. Today is it really normal that security staff with cameras need to see and identify everybody passing through the school?
I agree that a major change in dress is indicative of something--whether it's emotion, a new sense of fashion, fitting in with a new social crowd, or something else is a hard question. We don't need to put such people in a database of potential threats.
The answer is found in the “Safe School Initiative, a very thorough study conducted by the U.S. Secret Service & U.S. Department of Education that states, “There is no accurate or useful profile of the school shooter, nor for assessing the risk that a particular student may pose for school-based targeted violence.” In other words, someone’s proclivities or probabilities to act aggressively are not reliable predictors as to who the next perpetrator of murder/suicide will be.
Nothing in your article talks about the most important part of a CAPS assessment, the Judicious Interview. It has never been said that one should make an aggression assessment on body language, behavior and communication indicators alone. The Judicious Interview utilizes scientific cause and effect principals to ask specific questions and take specific action that will result in predicable behavior and confirms an aggressor’s intent to harm.
This article has convinced me to consider the entire "risk management industry" ( not the financial version to be a sick and dangerous element of the American society.
Colleges and universities expressis verbis INCLUDET!
The question that remains: is there a cure?