Customer Reviews

Innocent Targets: When Terrorism Comes to School

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Michael Dorn is an internationally-recognized expert of school safety and anti-terrorist measures who has worked with government agencies, foreign law-enforcement departments, among other organizations. He is also associated with the leading defense and intelligence agency Jane's. After analyzing a few notorious incidents from around the world where terrorists took school children hostage for the reasons for the success or failure of government authorities in dealing with them, Dorn--with his co-author his son, also a recognized authority by government agencies and the media--discusses general principles which can prevent a terrorist incident, be prepared for one if it does occur, and if so minimize the number of school children and teachers taken hostage and the potential loss of life. The timely, authoritative manual addresses the natural concern over the safety of children with a realistic perspective on the probability of a terrorist attack on any particular school. The recommendations put forward follow the guideline of being pertinent and responsible without being excessively costly to school systems and governments at different levels.

The base premise for this book is correct but it lacks sufficient development. Facts need to be checked more closely, ie Beslan. The authors take a subject that does need serious attention and give it a gloss over, granted we do not wish to hand terrorist a play book, but the book should be more detailed on terrorists group, mindset.

Innocent Targets: When Terrorism Comes to School by Michael Dorn and Chris Dorn is really a brief overview of school violence related to terrorism. Chapters 1-4 discuss terrorist events that have occurred in schools. Unfortunately, the information is so brief and without significant analysis that is fails to add value to the book. In addition, there is some information presented on the Beslan school massacre that is not factually correct. The remainder of the book has sections on:

- Terrorist Tendencies

- Combating Terrorism in Schools

- Impacts and Analysis

Again, these sections are very brief and really leave out significant detail. Innocent Targets is more of an outline on important information that must be considered to have safer schools. I do not believe this book would be a valuable resource for those looking to implement a school safety plan.

This is not a book that I would recommend. I would strongly recommend Terror at Beslan by John Giduck which is an excellent book about the Beslan school massacre.

I bought this book primarily because it is forwarded by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman whose books and other work are invaluable to anyone involved in fields that deal with human violence.

"Innocent Targets" does offer a useful quick guide to school safety planning, though the title is misleading and the book would more correctly have been named "School Crisis Planning for Dummies".

Most unfortunate is the authors' consistent hubris and constant self-aggrandizing insistence that the industry that their consulting firm services is filled with crooks and shysters, but not offering any advice as to how to identify such undesirable consultants other than referring to attributes of their own resumes.

Most true experts (See Lt. Col. Grossman or Gavin De Becker) do not need to detract from others in their field to be successful but rather let the value of their work speak for itself.

Though the above made the book very irritating for me to read, I still recommend it for people interested in the process of developing school safety and response plans. The 141 pages of content are easily read in a single sitting and the authors do write from a valuable base of experience on the subject.

2 stars for the book and one more for the forward !