Episode 1: Noise audit for assessing school shooting threats

Guest: Dr. James Densley (Criminal Justice Dept Chair at Metropolitan State University and Co-founder of The Violence Prevention Project).

Noble prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman passed away in March. I started the research for this paper when I read his final book, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgement, back in 2021.

Noise is the unwanted variability in decisions made by experts who are looking at exactly the same information. We measured the amount of variability in threat assessments. This study is the first time noise was measured in this context!

We talk about methods for this study, challenges with the peer review process, results from a survey for 245 police officers, and implications for dramatically changing how schools and police think about assessing threats. Our findings show the need to rethink the current “threat assessment team” model.

• Part 1: Impact of 'noise' on assessing school shooting threats

• Part 2: Measuring 'noise' when assessing school shooting threats

• Part 3: Results from 'noise audit' when assessing school shooting threats

• Part 4: Ways to reduce noise when assessing school shooting threats

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David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database. Listen to my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and Wisconsin Public Radio after the Mount Horeb Middle school shooting.