Earlier this month, a detective arrived at Shavon Harvey’s home in suburban Ohio, asking about her son. Her son had used her phone to send a Snapchat message to his friends, claiming there would be shootings at multiple local schools.

Ms. Harvey hurried to the police station, where her son was already in custody, but despite her efforts, the police did not release him. He was charged with inducing panic, a second-degree felony, and was held in detention for 10 days.

He is only 10 years old.

Her son isn’t alone in facing consequences for similar actions this month. And he’s not the youngest either.

In the three weeks following the tragic school shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia, which resulted in the deaths of two teachers and two students, more than 700 children and teens, including at least one fourth-grader, have been arrested for making violent threats towards schools in over 45 states, according to a review by The New York Times. Nearly 10% of those arrested were 12 years old or younger.

The wave of arrests comes as authorities and schools try to cope with a surge of threats involving violence, gunfire, and bombings. These threats have caused widespread fear among students and parents, led to a significant drop in attendance, and forced the temporary closure of dozens of schools. Many schools have even canceled events like homecoming parades and football games.

In Georgia alone, 98 students from 56 counties were arrested within two weeks of the Sept. 4 Apalachee High School shooting.

High-profile shootings often trigger a wave of copycat threats, and experts anticipate a spike in such behavior at the start of each school year. This semester, however, the combination of both factors seems to have intensified the situation.

More than a dozen prosecutors, school safety consultants, and district superintendents interviewed said they’ve been overwhelmed investigating social media posts containing images of guns, school lists, and ominous warnings to stay home.

“We’re seeing a volume of recirculated, reshared, and reposted threats that is unlike anything we’ve encountered before,” said Theresa Campbell, CEO of Safer Schools Together, which trains law enforcement and schools on handling threats.

Although there is no single organization tracking every school violence threat in the U.S., the vast majority of recent threats have turned out to be baseless. Gun-related incidents on school grounds between Sept. 4 and Sept. 20 were below recent years’ averages, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control group.

However, in Arizona, schools received 156% more threats in one week this September compared to the same time last year. In a Florida county near Orlando, 24 students have been charged with making threats in the first 28 days of school, all second-degree felonies.

In Ohio, a school safety center received more reports of threats this year than in the entirety of 2023—most of them occurring this month.

Some experts believe that these threats were already on the rise before this academic year.

“Five years ago, we averaged 29 school threats per month. Last year, we averaged 785 per month,” said Don Beeler of TDR Technology Solutions, a company that tracks threats. On the Monday after the Georgia shooting, he added, 500 schools were under threat.

This generation of young people faces unique challenges that some experts believe may be contributing to the rise in threats. These include the lingering effects of the pandemic’s stress and isolation, the widespread use of social media, and exposure to high-profile violence, from school shootings to political assassination attempts.

The surge in threats has also sparked debate about how law enforcement should respond. Recently, the sheriff of Volusia County, Florida, was both praised and criticized for publicly posting the names and photos of children accused of making threats.

Christopher Wren, a Phoenix police detective who oversees a statewide threat assessment program, said he hadn’t seen this volume of school threats since the “creepy clown” scare in 2016. However, he worries that arresting so many children could damage efforts to build trust with youth, adding that “not a lot of these kids need to go to jail.”

Research suggests that even brief periods of detention can lower a child’s chances of graduating high school and increase their likelihood of being arrested as adults.

Some experts say both students and parents are worsening the situation by reposting threats in an effort to warn others, instead of simply reporting them to authorities. Reposting can make threats from other regions appear local.

In the last three weeks, an autistic 15-year-old near Orlando allegedly threatened to blow up a high school while playing the video game Fortnite. An 11-year-old in southwest Arizona commented on TikTok about a gunman targeting his elementary school. In Wisconsin, a high school student was charged after posting on Snapchat that he would shoot up his school if Vice President Kamala Harris won the national election.

In all these cases—like in most school threat incidents—the threats were not credible. Yet, police are required to thoroughly investigate each one, placing immense strain on law enforcement agencies. After past shootings, like the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, and the recent Georgia incident, officials faced criticism for ignoring warning signs.

Michael T. Gmoser, the prosecutor in Butler County, Ohio, where Ms. Harvey’s son was charged, emphasized the seriousness of these cases. “This isn’t like stealing a pack of gum,” he said. “I know he’s just a child, but I also know the consequences of these actions for adults.”

After being released from juvenile detention, Ms. Harvey’s son explained how he thought his friends were just pulling pranks. He didn’t realize the seriousness of his Snapchat message. “I thought they would just warn me and tell me not to do it again,” he said.

His mother, although furious with the severity of the authorities’ actions, recognized the importance of addressing the situation. “You can’t play around with threats like that,” she told him. Yet, she also expressed frustration, feeling that her son was being used to set an example.

Experts on school violence caution against a one-size-fits-all approach. Dewey G. Cornell, a psychologist at the University of Virginia who trains school threat assessment teams, said law enforcement should consider factors such as a student’s age, the nature of the threat, and intent. Treating all threats the same, he added, is not a good practice.

Even though most threats are meant as jokes, they can cause real harm, exacerbating stress, absenteeism, and misbehavior in schools. Some students have experienced anxiety attacks due to local threats, noted Donald E. Robertson, superintendent of a large district in Virginia Beach.

The increase in threats suggests that many students may need counseling and mental health services. Even non-credible threats can signal underlying emotional problems, said Deborah M. Weisbrot, a clinical professor of psychiatry.

Many schools are struggling to handle these issues due to insufficient staffing and funding. Alyse Ley, a psychiatrist at Michigan State University, remarked that “behavior is a form of communication,” and that it’s the responsibility of adults to understand what these students are trying to express.

Lately, she observed, it seems that many children are “screaming for help.”