Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, unveiled legislation Monday that would provide schools with funding for security improvements and programs designed to prevent school violence.
The Students, Teachers, and Officers Preventing, or STOP, School Violence Act of 2018 would permit the Justice Department to extend grants to train students, school personnel, and law enforcement to be aware of red flags associated with violence and ways to intervene so people do not cause harm to themselves or others. Additionally, the legislation supports states incorporating technology such as an anonymous reporting systems.
“By providing critical resources to schools to strengthen their security infrastructure and train teachers, administrators, and law enforcement officers to intervene, we can save countless lives,” Hatch said in a statement Monday.
The legislation has attracted support from a bipartisan groups of lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., along with Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., among others.
“The tragedy in Parkland was the direct result of a failure to communicate between law enforcement, the F.B.I., and Broward County Schools,” Rubio said in a statement. “The STOP School Violence Act, which was designed by Sandy Hook Promise, would help fix these shortcomings on a national level by driving collaboration between law enforcement and schools to help identify and stop dangerous and violent individuals before they act. This law has broad bipartisan support in Congress. We should pass it as soon as possible.”
“This bipartisan legislation would provide tools and resources to law enforcement, teachers, and students to help prevent acts of violence in our schools before they start—but, it’s just one part of the solution,” Klobuchar said in a statement. “I believe we also need to pass a number of other safety measures related to guns, including universal background checks.”
The introduction of the measure comes after a high school shooting in Florida last month that took the lives of 17 individuals.
The attack has prompted calls for stricter gun laws and solutions for improving school safety.
