A Cultural and Psychosocial Perspective on Mass Murder

Abstract

Several different definitions have been proposed by investigators seeking to understand the phenomenon of “mass murder,” although they have much in common. For example, Palermo and Ross (1999) define mass murder as “the sudden, intentional killing of more than one person in the same location and at the same time, usually by a single person” (Palermo & Ross, 1999, p. 8) while Meloy et al. (2004) define mass murder as “the intentional killing of multiple victims in one continuous event” (p. 291). Levin and Madfis (2009) define mass murder as the “anti-social and non-state-sponsored killings of multiple victims during a single episode at one or more closely related locations” (p. 1227).

Appendix: History and Background of Mass Murders: The Role of Youth in the Media and in Reality

In contrast to the sensational reporting of the commercial media, which presents homicides among juveniles as a growing concern, evidence suggests that juvenile violence, including juvenile homicides, has actually decreased over the last few decades. After reaching a peak in 1993, juvenile arrests for murder dropped substantially, falling 71% between 1993 and 2000 (Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), 2012). Mirroring overall crime trends, which saw the number of murder arrests in the USA fall by half between 1990 and 2010 (BJS, 2012), the number of juvenile (and adult) arrests rates dropped substantially in the 1990s and continued to fall about 20% between 2000 and 2010, reaching their lowest levels since at least 1990 in 2010 (BJS, 2012).

In 2010, juvenile offenders were involved in an estimated 800 murders in the USA, representing 8% of all murders (Sickmund & Puzzanchera, 2014). Juvenile offenders acted alone in 48% of the murders, with one or more other juveniles in 9% and with at least one adult offender in 43% of the murders (Sickmund & Puzzanchera, 2014). The percentage of cases in which a juvenile committed a murder alone has been in decline, falling 73% between 1993 and 2010 (Sickmund & Puzzanchera, 2014). In fact, in 2010, murders by juveniles were less likely to be committed by a lone juvenile offender than in any since at least 1980 (Sickmund & Puzzanchera, 2014). According to the Sickmund and Puzzanchera (2014), approximately 70% of the overall decline in juvenile murders was attributable to the decrease in murders of nonfamily members by juvenile males with a firearm (p. 75). Contrasted with the typical profile of juvenile murders at the peak of juvenile homicide in 1994, juvenile murderers (in 2010), were generally older and had a greater proportion of female perpetrators and were less likely to have committed homicide with a firearm (Sickmund & Puzzanchera, 2014).

Homicides in US schools peaked from 1992 to 1993 (n = 42), and only 21 were reported from 1998 to 1999 (National School Safety Center, 1999). One exception to this trend, however, appears to be adolescent mass murders. Traditionally a high intensity, low frequency occurrence, juvenile mass murders seem to be occurring with greater frequency (Meloy et al., 2001). Evidence of this can be seen in the increasing occurrence of violent school shootings throughout the 1990s and early 2000s including the Columbine School Shooting of 1999 and Sandy Hook Shooting of 2012.

Between 1996 and 1999, there were six incidents of mass murder in schools that involved at least three fatalities (National School Safety Center, 1999). Despite the wave of school shootings in the mid to late-1990s (Ferguson, Coulson, & Barnett, 2011), mass murder, including juvenile mass murder, is not a recent phenomenon. Reports of school shootings date back to as early as the 1960s, when in 1966 a sniper named Charles Whitman killed 16 and wounded another 30 at the University of Texas (Ferguson et al., 2011). As explained by Ferguson et al. (2011), numerous other smaller shootings occurred both before and after the 1966 mass murder at the University of Texas, however these events did not gain significant media attention. Despite these early occurrences, public concern over juvenile mass murders did not spike until the 1990s following several particularly gruesome school shootings such as the Columbine High School Massacre of 1999. The gruesome nature of these events, including the youthful age of the victims and perpetrators, and intense media coverage led to a moral panic, which some researchers have argued was exaggerated compared to the scope of the problem. As Ferguson et al. (2011) explain, the increase in juvenile mass murders can be attributed to multiple causes, rather than the product of an increasingly disturbed violent juvenile population. The authors explain that fluctuations in the rate and occurrence of juvenile mass murders (including the apparent increase in recent decades) can be attributed to “fluctuations in very rare phenomena, a certain degree of copycatting, and the tendency to define only certain attention-getting mass homicides as ‘school shootings’ while ignoring a wider range of incidents, particularly among inner city minority youth …” (p. 143). As Ferguson et al. (2011) caution, juvenile mass murders are still rare and discussions of such events must be considered in light of this rarity (Wike & Fraser, 2009). For example, the appearance of an increasing number of juvenile mass murders may be attributable to an exploding juvenile population. As Ferguson et al., 2011 explain, within the context of a rapidly increasing population, even extremely rare events are bound to become more common in absolute numbers, even if their per capita rate remains stable. Support for this can be seen in the fact that despite media reports and public opinion which often categorize youth violence, including homicides committed by juveniles, as a growing concern, current evidence suggests single homicide shootings in the USA have decreased along with general youth violence rates, while multiple homicides have remained stable across the 2000s (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2008). Consequently, numerous scholars have noted that public concern about school shootings may be somewhat disproportionate to the actual rarity of such events (Ferguson, 2008; Killingbeck, 2001; Muschert, 2007; Wike & Fraser, 2009).

Though, perhaps unfounded or exaggerated, the moral panic that followed a spike in juvenile mass homicides and school shootings in the 1990s caused heightened attention to the issue of these events, and the public, policy-makers and government officials sought for answers to explain why the rash of homicides among youth was occurring. Of particular focus were efforts to profile juvenile mass murderers in order to identify potential perpetrators in advance and identify steps that could be taken to prevent such instances in the future (Ferguson et al., 2011, pp. 141–142).

Despite the importance of research on juvenile mass homicides (and public and political support for more research in this area), most scholars recognize that empirical evidence on school shooters is relatively slim (Borum, 2000; Ferguson, 2008; Hong, Cho, Allen-Meares, & Espelage, 2011; Langman, 2009a, 2009b; Wike & Fraser, 2009). Several factors may account for the apparent lack of empirical research on juvenile homicides. First, as previously discussed, juvenile mass homicides (including school shootings) are a relatively rare phenomena, which means there are few instances to examine and also causes problems for empirical and scientific research which requires numerous cases for ideal science. Moreover, as Ferguson et al. (2001) explain, information on these cases is also rare due to the fact that many perpetrators are killed during their crimes. As a result, a significant amount of information is lost as there is no opportunity to study perpetrators directly. Oftentimes, after incidences of juvenile mass homicides, researchers will seek to retroactively gain information on perpetrators. For example, information will be obtained by examining the perpetrators’ records (e.g., school assessments and psychiatric evaluations) or by interviewing individuals who may have known or had close connections to the perpetrator (e.g., family members, teachers, and friends). There are problems with this sort of retrospective research as records may be incomplete or vague. There is also the potential for hindsight bias to occur through questioning proximal subjects, rather than the perpetrator, himself. Despite these issues, numerous researchers have begun to examine cases of juvenile mass homicides in order to identify trends in characteristics that have led to the development of various “profiles” for school shooters and juvenile mass murderers. Although many of these “profiles” have commonalities, there are also differences between them. That said, there is no clear or reliable “profile” of a school shooter or juvenile mass murderer and consequently, many of those who have publicized such profiles have cautioned against the inappropriate use and over-application of these profiles.