Dear Editor:
The recent release of the movie Pearl Harbor showing the tragedy and horror that occurred in the lives of many Americans highlights an important point in violence prevention. As in the movie, if someone doesn’t think that something is likely or possible to happen, then he or she will take no efforts to prevent it from occurring. Unfortunately, in many ways, but on a lesser scale, the dynamic of Pearl Harbor is played out in our society on a daily and minute-by-minute basis. I am referring to victims of violence who believed that 1, it couldn’t happen to them, and 2, therefore, took no efforts to prevent it from occurring.
One of the most significant components of violence prevention is one’s belief system. As stated, you must believe that something is possible in order to set up safeguards against it. In believing that things are possible, consider all the various ways that violence may occur to you while at work, home, on the road or in school. The idea is to see them as just what they are, possibilities, not necessarily things with high probabilities of occurrence. It is important to make a distinction between what is possible and what is probable or likely. The two are not equal. In violence prevention, to assign an occurrence as being possible and as having high probability means that you should set up significant safeguards against it occurring. However, if the issue in question, although possible, has a low probability of occurrence, then stringent safeguards that you set up will be cumbersome to your personal freedom. Examples of this abound in our culture as well. The response of schools being one of them. In reality, the chances of being killed while at school are approximately one in two million. Since 1990 the number of students killed while at school has steadily gone down despite media portrayals of mass shootings. The average number of youth killed per year while at school is between 19 and 55. Although this number has gone down and it is extremely unlikely that a youth would be killed while at school, communities and school officials have responded to this problem by installing police and metal detectors. This is an example of over estimating the probability of occurrence, which can limit freedoms and restrict access and cause undue stress. By the same token, not to consider it possible at all leads one to be completely unprepared in the event of the occurrence of the threat.
True violence prevention requires a balance between knowing what is possible and estimating the degree of probabilities of those events occurring. It is important to set up counter measures and safeguards to the threats for our well-being but not at the expense of over reaction and inhibition of our personal freedom.
What you see on the 11 p.m. news aside, violence is not as likely to occur as what the news may make you think. Yes, it is true that our violence rates are high in this country but that does not mean that violence is extremely likely to occur. Fear is adaptive and can be healthy but unwarranted fear restricts life and causes undue hardship. One must strive for a balane between personal freedoms and protection of those freedoms.
Ronald J. Coughlin, Ed.D., President
The New Jersey Violence Prevention Institute