In the Houston area this past fall, there was a surprising increase in the number of middle school and high school-age students reported to local officials and formally locked up on allegations of making threats of mass violence.
A total of 39 students were officially detained between Aug. 1 and Dec. 31, 2024. Compare that with one year earlier, during that same time span, only three juveniles were officially detained for making such threats.
Elizabeth Sander, who reports on education for the Houston Chronicle, said a threat of mass violence is actually a combination of other legal charges.
“A threat of mass violence isn’t in the statute, but it is a combination of different charges,” she said. “A juvenile may have threatened their school or threatened to commit violence in a public place that would lead to any kind of disruption.”
A lot of this increase in threats have taken place on social media, Sander said.
“The average age of juveniles in detention this fall for this reason was 13, which is much younger than the average age of juveniles in detention, which is closer to 16,” she said.
“A Harris County juvenile psychologist told me these children tend to generally be on the quieter side. They may internalize their grievances rather than communicate what might be going on. And an entrenched grievance is often what leads a child to threaten mass violence, whether they have a plan or access weapons or not. It’s that entrenched grievance that is often the cause.”
The increased number in students detained might be due to copycat threats — specifically after the Apalachee High School shooting in Georgia in September, Sander said.
“This was seen nationwide, there was an increase in threats on social media all over the country. But that doesn’t really explain why so many students were detained for making these threats,” she said.
“What’s interesting is the majority of the students that were detained this fall, this psychologist I interviewed who tracks this data found that the majority of those students actually had what are known as transient threats, which means that they may have shown remorse, they may not have had a plan in place, or any access to weapons. Basically, the threat probably wouldn’t have led to violence.”
When students are detained for threats, they are taken downtown to the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department.
“Students might be handcuffed on their way there and then they get there, they’re put in a cell in units of 12. So every juvenile has their individual cell,” Sander said. “By law, it’s two business days before they can have their first official hearing with a detention judge. And so, for example, if a student or a juvenile is brought to the detention center on a Thursday, they may not actually have their hearing until Monday.”
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Some experts have been critical of putting more young people in contact with the juvenile detention system over these threats.
“Pretty much every expert I talked to was concerned with how many students had these allegations of specifically transient threats that likely wouldn’t have led to violence and then were spending time in the detention center for that,” Sander said. “Studies have shown that detaining a student who’s made a threat of mass violence or painting a student for any reason might actually make it worse.
It could exacerbate the underlying grievance that they might have against the school system or students, and taking them away from their education, which is a protective factor in making sure that students don’t have involvement with the juvenile system, can make that more difficult.”
