Silent Witness

The present study traces campus climate at Virginia Tech, site of the deadliest school massacre in modern U.S. history, from 2003 to 2017. Using the unobtrusive method of content analysis as a measure of campus climate, data in the form of desktop graffiti—student-authored graffiti on classroom desktops—is analyzed according to amount and content. A total of 1,443 desks are studied, resulting in 8,172 pieces of intelligible graffiti analyzed. Data collected prior to the massacre is compared to data collected one semester, one year, and one decade following the massacre. From this emerges an unobtrusively painted picture of campus climate at Virginia Tech over the course of 14 years, spanning before and after tragic events. The present study adds to the literature on classroom culture post-campus violence and speaks to the subtler, often obscured, impacts of school shootings.

Comparison of compression estimations under the penalty functions of different violent crimes on campus through deep learning and linear spatial autoregressive models

To reduce the probability of violent crimes, the deep learning (DL) technology and linear spatial autoregressive models (ARMs) are utilised to estimate the model parameters through different penalty functions. In addition, under a determinate space, the influences of environmental factors on violent crimes are discussed. By taking campus violence cases as examples, the major influencing factors of violent crimes are found through data analysis. The results show that campus violence cases are usually caused by the complex surrounding environments and persons. Also, campus security measures only cover a small range, and the security management is difficult. In the meantime, due to the younger ages and lack of self-protection awareness, students may easily become the targets of criminals. Therefore, the results have a positive significance for authorities to analyse the crime rates in a determinate area and take preventive measures against violent crimes.

Campus Violence Detection Based on Artificial Intelligent Interpretation of Surveillance Video Sequences

Campus violence is a common social phenomenon all over the world, and is the most harmful type of school bullying events. As artificial intelligence and remote sensing techniques develop, there are several possible methods to detect campus violence, e.g., movement sensor-based methods and video sequence-based methods. Sensors and surveillance cameras are used to detect campus violence. In this paper, the authors use image features and acoustic features for campus violence detection. Campus violence data are gathered by role-playing, and 4096-dimension feature vectors are extracted from every 16 frames of video images. The C3D (Convolutional 3D) neural network is used for feature extraction and classification, and an average recognition accuracy of 92.00% is achieved. Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) are extracted as acoustic features, and three speech emotion databases are involved. The C3D neural network is used for classification, and the average recognition accuracies are 88.33%, 95.00%, and 91.67%, respectively. To solve the problem of evidence conflict, the authors propose an improved Dempster–Shafer (D–S) algorithm. Compared with existing D–S theory, the improved algorithm increases the recognition accuracy by 10.79%, and the recognition accuracy can ultimately reach 97.00%.

The role of built environmental design in violence prevention in universities' campuses: Al al-Bayt University in Jordan as a case study

PurposeThe purposes of this research were to review, analyze, synthesize and define the principles, indicators and required design elements of crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) and the potential role of the design of the courtyards in preventing campus violence; to examine the relationships between built environment design and campus violence inside Al al-Bayt University (AABU), Jordan; and to examine to what extent the design of the open public spaces and courtyards inside AABU meet the design principles of the CPTED.Design/methodology/approachThis research used descriptive-analytical approach, semi-structured interviews, archival records and videos to collect the location-based data of violent events and incidents that occurred on the campus of AABU (the locations of students' fights). Additionally, this research used AABU images; plans, spatial analysis, site visits and direct observations to analyze and assess the courtyards’ design and to examine to what extent the design of courtyards and open public spaces in AABU achieve the CPTED indicators, and the availability and the quality of the required design elements of CPTED and their role in violence prevention.FindingsThis research found that environmental-based design plays a major role in reducing crime opportunities and promote positive social behavior. This research found that the indicators to achieve the CPTED principles in all courtyard design inside AABU are very low and all the courtyards’ designs are not complied and conformed to the CPTED principles, and as a result, the design of the courtyards encourages and may facilitate violence in the university campus. It has been found that the availability and the quality of the required CPTED design elements are very low in all courtyards. Therefore, the existing design elements in all courtyards in AABU are not preventing the university violence. The correlation result revealed that there is significant relationship and strong/very strong negative linear association between the numbers of the students' fights and the applying of CPTED principles, indicators and required design elements (r = −0.85).Research limitations/implicationsThe data collected from AABU campus only and a larger study is certainly required to underpin these findings. Therefore, future research is needed to replicate and duplicate this research in order to expand the results.Practical implicationsThis research has implications for designing/redesigning the open public space and courtyards inside universities. This research recommended that redesigning all courtyards and applying the principles of CPTED are necessary to prevent campus violence. Redesigning includes adding landscaping elements, fountains, water features, pedestrian furniture, portrait, setting areas, new modern sculptures, shaded areas, lighting, memorial places, digital screens and cameras. Moreover, this research recommended that the university should pay more attention to continuous control, repair and maintenance to all courtyards after redesigning them. Finally, this research introduced a design proposal for one of the courtyards to apply the CPTED principles that promote positive behavior and prevent campus violence.Originality/valueIn the last few years in Jordan, some of the public and private Jordanian universities suffered from a newly emerging negative phenomenon, which is violence between students inside the campus. Many researchers and governmental institutions have stressed the urgency to explore the social, cultural, behavioral and environmental strategies that may effectively prevent campus violence. Additionally, little attention has been paid to the role of built environmental design in preventing campus violence. Moreover, no research assesses the applying of the CPTED principles and their indicators in courtyards’ design in Jordanian campuses.