A Sequence Analysis of the Behaviors and Experiences of the Deadliest Public Mass Shooters.

Researchers of public mass shooters are increasingly focusing on the pre-attack behaviors and experiences of these offenders. Varying in scope from consideration of individual factors to more generalized life course and threat assessment analyses, their scholarship has identified behavioral and experiential factors associated with public mass shooters. However, what is generally missing from this body of research is consideration of the order in which the offender encounters these factors, and prior related research has shown that analyzing sequences allows for insights not available from a catalogue of common characteristics. To address this shortcoming, we use a sample of offenders from 1999 to 2020 for whom the most detailed data is available and conduct a sequence analysis of their stressors, antisocial behaviors, mental health issues, and planning and preparation activities. We calculate proximity coefficients for each variable in relation to all others, capturing both local and distant connections between and among them. Our findings reveal relatively coherent phases in the lives of attackers, highlight the centrality of family problems and interest in past mass killings in the overall sequence, and provide new context to understanding the effect of mental health issues and firearms acquisition in the lives of offenders. A discussion of findings illustrates potential intervention points that may have been overlooked, as well suggestions for future research.

The timing of opportunities to prevent mass shootings: a study of mental health contacts, work and school problems, and firearms acquisition.

Although it is important to know what public mass shooters have in common, it is also helpful to understand when different variables were present on their pathways to violence. This study explored the timing of key life events for the deadliest public mass shooters in the United States since Columbine (N = 14). Using data from official reports and supplementary sources, we found perpetrators' mental health contacts often began more than a decade before their mass shootings, and often ended more than a year before their attacks. Mental illness was typically a constant in their lives, not something that automatically caused them to attack. While treatment may help prevent some mass shootings, mental health professionals have limited influence over patients they have not recently seen. In turn, perpetrators' work and school problems also typically began long before their mass shootings, but these issues continued closer to their attacks. Employers and educators may therefore have an opportunity to intervene later in the process. Firearms acquisition often occurred in the final stages, after perpetrators were already interested in mass murder. Red flag laws and ERPOs which prohibit sales to explicitly dangerous individuals may therefore help reduce the prevalence of these attacks.

Gender-Based Mass Shootings: An Examination of Attacks Motivated by Grievances Against Women.

This study provides a quantitative examination of gender-based mass shootings in America from 1966-2018. Gender-based mass shootings refer to attacks motivated by grievances against women, divided into four categories based on a specific woman or women in general, as well as whether they directly target the source of their grievances. Findings indicate that specific woman-targeted shooters were the most common and significantly different from their counterparts in their domestic violence history, racial diversity, and engagement in spree attacks. When comparing all gender-based attacks against other mass shootings, significant differences include relationship status, children, domestic violence history, substance abuse history, and suicide. This investigation provides implications for gender and mass shooting scholars, as well as practitioners developing strategies for intervention and prevention.

Cognitive Interviewing to Improve Questionnaires for Justice-Involved Youth.

This study demonstrates the utility of cognitive interviewing for survey and scale development in criminal justice research and identifies common comprehension problems with survey items for justice-involved youth. A cognitive interviewing strategy was utilized with a sample of youth who completed a survey examining risk factors for recidivism. A content analysis of interviews was used to identify patterns and to classify the nature and type of comprehension issues youth experienced. Five specific comprehension issues were identified including reading comprehension, item ambiguity, precondition binds, double-barreled questions, and double negatives. Findings illustrate the value of cognitive interviewing for pretesting survey items for justice-involved youth and provide further insight into issues surrounding word choice, question structure, and response sets. Results also point to the need to reassess the validity of established scales used in contemporary studies. Limitations of the current study and implications for future research are discussed.