Campus Violence has become so normalized that students in the current generations almost
expect it to happen every year. These bad things happen so often students begin to feel
desensitized to the horror that is campus violence. It shouldn’t be normal for students to expect
to get alerts about incidents on campus of violence and criminal activity almost every single day.
By: Calyn Dugat
With a brief look at statistics on most campuses, it is obvious that campus violence is not
a new thing. Students have been conditioned since they were young to be prepared for the
absolute worst when attending schools. No matter what school the student has attended. There
are always rules in place and safety precautions in place to inform the student about school
violence, and what to do in those scenarios. However, once they reach a collegiate level, finding
that information is not as easy as it seems. On most campuses, students will have to search for
that information themselves, and will not be told what the emergency procedures are in case of
an incident on campus. However, since most students are incredibly familiar with it, because
precautions to take, since that information has been drilled into them since they were very young,
it’s become almost second nature to understand, and know, at least a small portion of what to do
in case of one of those emergencies. However, campuses are much larger than the typical high
school and elementary school, which makes it a lot more intimidating for students when it comes
to preparing themselves for these events to happen.
School and campuses should be a place for students to feel safe and feel they are
protected, but in this current day and age, it’s become a lot harder for students to expect that
protection and safety, because of the numerous counts of campus violence that add up over the
years. Students growing up their whole lives, expecting something bad to happen in the school
system has become such a normal thing that should’ve never been normalized in the first place.
Students shouldn’t have to fear for their lives every day they attend school. Knowing the
information and the tools that are available to students in case of those events should be shared
every single semester so that in case an event does happen all students can be prepared and not
be worried about how to act or what to do. All campuses have an emergency preparedness for
what to do in case a violent situation happens. Most of the time it’s on their website for students
to find, but it shouldn’t be up to just the student whether they find and search for that information
themselves. That kind of life-saving information needs to be provided for everyone.
Most schools put their records and documentation of incidents that have happened on and
off campus on their website in a crime log. Students at Sam Houston State University can view
the crime log for the University by simply going through the Sam Houston state university
website and searching for the crime logs. Looking at the statistics for campus violence is quite
alarming. However, while it may be alarming, it’s also become expected to see such high
numbers since childhood, this generation has been prepared to expect the worst when it comes to
their schooling environment. Students have become dramatically numbed to violent events on
campus just because they’ve been trained to expect those things to happen since they were very
young.