School-Security Companies Are Thriving in the Era of Mass Shootings
In late June, inside an underground meeting room attached to the U.S. Capitol, past guards and metal detectors, lawmakers and representatives from multiple large security companies discussed the threat of mass school shootings and the need to, in their words, “harden” campuses before someone else gets killed.
“If you think this cannot happen to you, I’m here to tell you I used to think the same exact thing,” said Noel Glacer, a Florida-based security professional. The message—belied by the statistical rarity of school shootings—was part cautionary tale, part call to action.
Glacer is no dispassionate observer. In February, his son, Jake, was in a psychology class at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when a gunman opened fire, killing 17. Glacer urged people in the room to donate to SOS Parkland, a nonprofit that’s raising money to equip the city’s schools with additional security.
He was sharing his message at the annual conference of the Security Industry Association, a trade group, whose attendees included Trump administration officials, legislators from both parties, security-company executives, and industry lobbyists.
Corporate representatives at the conference hawked a range of products, including surveillance cameras with facial-recognition capability, automated door locks, gunshot-detection sensors, and software that scans social-media platforms in search of the next shooter. If schools across the country put more emphasis on securing their buildings, they said, school leaders could prevent shootings or, at the very least, mitigate the bloodshed.
Each major school shooting—Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland—has helped expand a multi-billion dollar industry that sells not just sophisticated surveillance technology, but also high-priced consultants to explain it all to anxious educators. The recent tragedies are providing momentum—not to mention funds, including millions of dollars in federal money—to initiatives that aim to keep children safe. As the tragedies have piled up, some education leaders.
