Vern Pierson, the El Dorado County District Attorney, wrote a commentary in CalMatters discussing how to address mass shootings. He cited data from The Violence Project's mass shooter database, as well as prevention strategies recommended by Jillian Peterson and James Densley. "The crisis of mass shootings and school shootings is complex. But … [Read more...]
Science has identified common threads in school shootings
Years of Research Finds That Most School Shooters Have 4 Things in Common
After a mass shooting at a school—or any other location—we are left with so many questions: Why was this school targeted? Was there anything anyone could do to stop it? Were there any clues in the shooter’s behavior that might point to why they resorted to this type of violence? Among those seeking answers are Jillian Peterson, PhD, a … [Read more...]
Can Mass Shooter Attacks Be Prevented?
A growing body of research on mass shootings has three new reports on who carries out such attacks and how—or whether—they can be prevented. Two university researchers supported by a grant from the National Institute of Justice have created a mass-shooter database going back more than 50 years, covering 171 shootings in which four or more people … [Read more...]
Mass shootings are contagious. How can they be stopped?
“I think in many ways people view mass shootings as a part of American society in the way baseball, apple pie and the Fourth of July are,” says Jaclyn Schildkraut, associate professor of criminal justice at the State University of New York at Oswego and an expert on mass shootings. “It’s just something that’s expected as ‘who we are as a … [Read more...]
Mass Shooter Database
How do we reduce mass shootings? In today's Academic Minute, Hamline University's Jillian Peterson looks into the data. Peterson is an assistant professor of criminal justice at Hamline. A transcript of this podcast can be found here. Listen to the Episode Source: Inside Higher Ed - Academic Minute … [Read more...]