The point of security theater is often to placate the public. Public demands (or is perceived to demand) action. Doesn't matter what. In this case "something" was done. The school gets to :
1) boast about how they were proactive and did something quick (so it looks good on their resumes).
2) protect themselves against the expected criticisms that they didn't do anything.
3) it was an easy policy to implement (they just wrote down a new rule). no need for new equipment, training or anything so it doesn't affect the budget.
Not saying that it isn't stupid. It is very stupid. But in their position they seem to act rationally. Now if another incident occurs they will get a backlash about how transparent backpacks didn't work, to which the response would be we need to outlaw binders. _But_ if they hadn't done anything and another incident occurred the backlash would have been a lot worse -- they would have been blamed and possibly sued because they took no action to prevent it after a history of past incidents.
1) boast about how they were proactive and did something quick (so it looks good on their resumes).
2) protect themselves against the expected criticisms that they didn't do anything.
3) it was an easy policy to implement (they just wrote down a new rule). no need for new equipment, training or anything so it doesn't affect the budget.
Not saying that it isn't stupid. It is very stupid. But in their position they seem to act rationally. Now if another incident occurs they will get a backlash about how transparent backpacks didn't work, to which the response would be we need to outlaw binders. _But_ if they hadn't done anything and another incident occurred the backlash would have been a lot worse -- they would have been blamed and possibly sued because they took no action to prevent it after a history of past incidents.