Graduation Semester and Year
2020
Language
English
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Criminology and Criminal Justice
Department
Criminology and Criminal Justice
First Advisor
Seungmug Lee
Abstract
School Mass Shootings (SMS) continue to be an ongoing issue for k-12 schools, technical/vocational schools, and on college campuses in the United States. Recent studies have shown that these crimes are increasing in both frequency and lethality. However, SMS are still considered to be statistically rare events making them difficult to study quantitatively. Many extant studies use an exclusive definition of SMS where an incident must have four or more deaths to be categorized as this type of crime. The present study utilizes an inclusive definition of 2 or more deaths, where every four injuries count as a death in order to have a larger dataset for analyses. This study uses a dataset of 60 SMS cases that occurred between 1927-2019. The data were collected from news sources, online journals, etc. as well as Census data. Research questions relate to characteristics of the schools where the shootings occurred, characteristics of the shooters themselves including mental health status, and incidental characteristics. Findings and policy implications are discussed.
Keywords
School mass shootings, Gun violence, Mental illness, Prior warning, Threat assessments
Disciplines
Criminology and Criminal Justice | Legal Studies | Social and Behavioral Sciences
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
O'Dell, Amber Elizabeth, "AN EXAMINATION OF SCHOOL CHARACTERISTICS, SHOOTER CHARACTERISTICS, AND INCIDENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SCHOOL MASS SHOOTINGS" (2020). Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses. 123.
https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/crcj_theses/123
Comments
Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington