Does ALICE Training® Work? What the Research Says

Does ALICE Training® work? The short answer is yes.

Peer-reviewed research shows ALICE’s options-based response reduces casualties, shortens incident resolution time, and helps your community survive active shooter incidents at higher rates than traditional lockdown-only drills.

A training program’s real test comes during an actual crisis, not a tabletop exercise. ALICE Training is backed by simulation studies, psychological safety research, and two decades of real-world use across schools, workplaces, and healthcare settings, which is why the results hold up under scrutiny. 

Does ALICE Training Work? Here’s What the Data Shows

Enclosed spaces and open areas create very different survival odds during an active threat, which rings true in a classroom, a hospital corridor, a warehouse floor, or a sanctuary alike.

A 2018 study in the peer-reviewed Journal of School Violence measured that gap directly. Over 10 months in 2016 and 2017, researchers ran active shooter simulations at 13 sites nationwide, comparing traditional lockdown response to multi-option response like ALICE in both classroom and open-area scenarios.

They compared traditional lockdown responses to multi-option response training like ALICE. The results:

• In classroom simulations, the average number of people shot dropped by roughly 50% when participants used a multi-option
• response instead of lockdown-only.
• In open areas such as hallways and libraries, multi-option response resulted in a 58% drop in the number of people shot.
• Multi-option response also resolved incidents faster than lockdown-only response, which took significantly longer to reach a conclusion in the same simulations.

Federal guidance points to the same conclusion. Since 2013, the U.S. Department of Education, FEMA, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security have recommended multi-option response over lockdown-only procedures for any facility or organization — guidance the agencies reaffirmed in a 2014 active shooter recommendations document.

The National Fire Protection Association sets the standard at an even broader scale. NFPA 3000, the Standard for an Active Shooter/Hostile Event Response (ASHER) Program, was built with fire service, law enforcement, EMS, emergency management, higher education, and facility management professionals. It gives organizations of any kind a framework to prepare, respond, and recover, and it calls for training bystanders—students, employees, healthcare workers, anyone at a public venue—to act as empowered first responders. That’s the same foundation ALICE Training is built on. 

What Exactly Is ALICE Training?

ALICE stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate. Developed in 2000 by former police officer and educator Greg Crane, ALICE Training was the first civilian active shooter response training program built as an alternative to traditional lockdown-only drills.

The framework borrowed a core principle from a century-old fire service model: no single response fits every emergency. 

Today, more than 18,000 individuals across school districts, workplaces, healthcare facilities, local governments, and houses of worship are certified ALICE instructors.

The curriculum was developed with direct input from law enforcement, educators, and safety administrators, and it uses a blended learning model—interactive eLearning paired with in-person, instructor-led training—so participants absorb the material two different ways and retain it longer.

Why Options-Based Response Outperforms Lockdown-Only Drills

Traditional lockdown procedures were built in the 1980s to protect students from drive-by shootings, not the active shooter incidents schools, workplaces, and other organizations prepare for today. Lockdown assumes everyone can reach a locked room, stay hidden, and remain still until help arrives.

In real incidents, this rarely plays out that neatly.

During the 1999 Columbine High School shooting, lockdown failed for students and staff caught in large open areas outside a classroom. At Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012, the assailant breached a locked building by shooting out a window near the front entrance. In the 2005 Red Lake, Minnesota shooting, the attacker used the same tactic to enter a locked classroom.

These vulnerabilities aren’t unique to schools, and locked doors alone didn’t stop any of the attacks. 

ALICE Training’s options-based approach gives participants a range of responses instead of one instruction. Depending on their proximity to danger, participants can barricade a room, evacuate when a path is clear, or counter an attacker as a last resort.

That flexibility, not a single pre-determined script, is what drives higher rates of survival.

A Trauma-Informed Approach That Protects Mental Health, Too

A common concern about active shooter drills is psychological harm, and it’s a fair one.

Trauma affects children and adults alike. Roughly one in four children has experienced trauma that can affect their behavior and response to stress, while 61% of adults had at least one adverse childhood experience. This makes the delivery of active shooter training just as important as what it teaches.

ALICE Training addresses this directly with a trauma-informed approach: age- and ability-appropriate lesson plans, blended learning that pairs eLearning with hands-on practice, and simulations designed to build preparedness without unnecessary fear or injury.
The goal is to approximate real event conditions closely enough to build genuine readiness, without re-traumatizing participants in the process.

The results back up the approach. A study on the psychological impact of multi-option training found that across grades 4 through 12, at least 85% of students reported no change—or an increase—in their feelings of safety after completing ALICE Training.

That’s a meaningful data point for organizations worried that training itself will do more harm than good.

Empowering Individuals—Not Just Following Instructions

The ALICE philosophy is empowerment over fear.

Scholarly research comparing ALICE to other multi-option programs, including Run-Hide-Fight, found that teachers trained in ALICE reported feeling empowered, while teachers trained in Run-Hide-Fight reported feeling anxious. Organizations that completed ALICE Training also reported a stronger overall culture of safety afterward.

That distinction matters for real-world outcomes. Response training that empowers individuals to make their own decisions, rather than freeze and wait for instructions, is training people actually retain and use under stress.

Giving participants options, instead of rigid structure, is part of why ALICE outcomes hold up so consistently in the research.

Real-World Examples: ALICE in Action

ALICE Training has been tested in real incidents, not just simulations, across sectors.

In January 2017, West Liberty-Salem High School in Ohio evacuated its entire high school wing in under two minutes during an active shooter event. “It was very clear that ALICE had done its job,” said Superintendent Kraig Hissong. Assistant Principal Andy McGill called the response “textbook.”

Three years later, a different kind of building faced the same test. On Christmas Eve 2020, a man carrying a guitar case filled with weapons entered Real Life Ministries, a network of churches in Post Falls, Idaho, intending to hurt as many people as possible. Staff and volunteers trained in ALICE locked down, evacuated, and countered the attacker, subduing him within minutes.

“Without the training from Navigate360 and ALICE, it would’ve been a dark day in our church’s history,” said Gary James, a former SWAT member and congregant.

Built With Law Enforcement, Backed by Ongoing Research

ALICE Training wasn’t built in a vacuum. The curriculum was developed with direct input from law enforcement, educators, and safety administrators across schools, businesses, and healthcare systems, and it’s delivered exclusively by certified instructors who complete an extensive certification process and ongoing recertification every three years.

As new peer-reviewed research on active shooter incidents is published, ALICE Training updates its curriculum to reflect the latest evidence, rather than relying on a static, decades-old model.

What the Research Doesn’t Claim

It’s worth being clear about what the research shows, and what it doesn’t. The 2018 simulation study measured outcomes in controlled training scenarios, not live incidents, and no study can perfectly predict how any individual will respond in a real crisis.

ALICE Training doesn’t claim to prevent every attack or eliminate risk entirely.

What the evidence does support is a measurable improvement over lockdown-only response across the specific outcomes researchers tracked: number of people shot, time to resolution, and reported feelings of safety and empowerment afterward.

That’s a meaningfully different, and more honest, claim than “this program stops shootings,” and it’s the reason peer-reviewed researchers continue to reference these findings.

Does ALICE Training Save Lives?

No training program can guarantee an outcome, and that’s not a claim ALICE Training makes.

What the research does show is consistent and specific: options-based response training measurably reduces casualties, resolves incidents faster, and helps students and staff feel more prepared and less anxious than lockdown-only alternatives.

For schools, workplaces, and organizations deciding how to prepare for the unthinkable, this combination of evidence—survival outcomes, psychological safety data, and two decades of field use—makes ALICE Training the strongest evidence-based option currently available.

Whether you’re evaluating ALICE Training for the first time or comparing it against another multi-option program, the research above is a good starting point for that conversation.