Youth Violence NSF PDF

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE
Youth Violence: What We Know and What We Need to Know

Brad J. Bushman
The Ohio State University and VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Katherine Newman
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Sandra L. Calvert
Georgetown University
Geraldine Downey
Columbia University
Mark Dredze
Johns Hopkins University
Michael Gottfredson
University of Oregon
Nina G. Jablonski
Pennsylvania State University
Ann Masten
University of Minnesota
Calvin Morrill
University of California, Berkeley
Daniel B. Neill
Carnegie Mellon University
Daniel Romer
University of Pennsylvania
2
Daniel Webster
Johns Hopkins University

Author Notes
Brad J. Bushman, School of Communication and Department of Psychology; Katherine
Newman, Department of Sociology; Sandra Calvert, Department of Psychology and Children's
Digital Media Center; Geraldine Downey, Department of Psychology and Center for Justice;
Mark Dredze, Department of Computer Science; Michael Gottfredson, Department of Sociology;
Nina G. Jablonski, Department of Anthropology; Ann Masten, Institute of Child Development;
Calvin Morrill, School of Law and Department of Sociology; Daniel B. Neill, Event and Pattern
Detection Laboratory, H.J. Heinz III College; Daniel Romer, Adolescent Communication
Institute of the Annenberg Public Policy Center; Daniel Webster, Johns Hopkins Center for Gun
Policy and Research.
We would like to thank Rolf Loeber and Lia Ahonen for their helpful comments on an
earlier draft of this paper.
This research was funded by National Science Foundation (NSF) grant "Workshop on
Youth Violence (BCS-1322155).
Address correspondence to Brad J. Bushman, Ph.D., School of Communication, The
Ohio State University, 3127 Derby Hall, 154 North Oval Mall, Columbus, OH, 43210-1339,
Email: bushman.20@osu.edu
3
Abstract
School shootings tear the fabric of society. In the wake of a school shooting, parents,
pediatricians, policy makers, politicians, and the public search for answers to the puzzle of youth
violence, but there are no simple answers. Acts of violence are complex, especialy rare acts like
school shootings. Violent acts are influenced by multiple factors, often acting together. After the
Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut in which 20 students and 6
staff members were killed, the 12 authors of this article wrote a report for the National Science
Foundation on what we know and dont know about youth violence. This article provides an
updated version of that report. After distinguishing violent behavior from aggressive behavior,
we describe the prevalence of gun violence in the U.S. and age-related risks for violence. We
delineate important differences between violence in the context of rampage school shootings,
which are rare, and much more common urban street violence. We summarize evidence on some
major risk factors for youth aggression and violence, as well as protective factors that mitigate or
counter risk, highlighting individual and contextual factors which often interact. We consider
new quantitative data mining procedures that can be used to predict youth violence perpetrated
by groups and individuals, recognizing critical issues of privacy and ethical concerns that arise in
the prediction of violence perpetrated by individuals. We conclude by discussing implications of
the evidence to date for public policies that could reduce youth violence, and we offer
suggestions for future research. (250 words; 250 words max)
Keywords: aggression, violence, rampage shootings, street shootings, youth
Youth Violence: What We Know and What We Need to Know

We cant tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must
change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No
single lawno set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless
act of violence in our society. But that cant be an excuse for inaction. Surely, we can do
better than this. If there is even one step we can take to save another child, or another
parent, or another town, then surely we have an obligation to try.
President Barack Obama, Interfaith Prayer Vigil, Newtown High School
Newtown, Connecticut, 16 December 2012
President Obama made these remarks two days following the Newtown shooting, in
which a 20-year-old young man first killed his mother in their home, and then went to a nearby
elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut and killed 20 children and 6 staff members before
killing himself. In the wake of the Newtown shooting, Representative Frank Wolf (RepublicanVirginia) asked the National Science Foundation (NSF) to determine what researchers do and do
not know about the connection between exposure to media violence (e.g., video games, films,
television) and youth violence, and other factors that contribute to these devastating events. The
NSF contacted the first two authors of this article and requested that we assemble a team of
experts to write a report on causes of youth violence. The 12 authors of this article assembled at
the NSF headquarters to write the report on 1-2 February 2013, acting as an advisory committee
to the NSF Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Division. We were told to focus on school
rampage shootings as well as other forms of youth violence and aggression. A recent analysis of
110 rampage shootings from 2009 to 2014 found that the average rampage shooter is older
(median age 34) than the typical perpetrator of homicide (median age 26), and that most
shootings involve family and domestic violence (Everytown for Gun Safety, 2014). Only 4% of
the rampage shootings in their sample occurred in schools. Thus, rampage shootings committed
by youth in schools are even less likely than those that occur in other settings by older
individuals. However, our charge was to focus on rampage shootings in schools, since the
Newtown tragedy led to our assignment. Thus, in this article we focus on school rampage
shootings rather than all types of rampage shootings.
Our report (Bushman et al., 2013) was given to Representative Wolf, who then
distributed it to all members of Congress and to all of Americas Governors. The first author also
testified about the report before The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Commerce,
Justice, Science, and Related Agencies on 19 March 2013. In this article, we summarize findings
from our report, augmented by new findings. We also discuss the implications of these findings
on youth violence for prevention, public policy, and future research.
Aggression and Violence in the United States
In this section, we define aggression and violence. Then we discuss the heavy incidence
of gun violence in the U.S. Finally, we focus on age differences in violent behavior, because
youth are at particular risk for serious acts of violence, both as perpetrators and victims.
Defining Aggression and Violence
Lay people and researchers often use the term aggression differently. Lay people may
describe a salesperson as aggressive when he or she tries really hard to sell someone
something. The salesperson does not, however, want to harm anyone. Most researchers define
human aggression as any behavior intended to harm another person who does not want to be
harmed (Bushman & Huesmann, 2010). The harm can be physical or psychological.
Most researchers define violence as aggression that has as its goal extreme physical harm,
such as injury or death (Bushman & Huesmann, 2010). For example, one youth spreading
rumors about a peer is an act of aggression but is not an act of violence. One youth intentionally
hitting, kicking, shooting, or stabbing another person is an act of violence. Thus, all violent acts
are aggressive acts, but not all aggressive acts are violent actsonly those designed to cause
extreme physical harm would be classified as violent.
Gun Violence in the United States
The United States (U.S.) is the most heavily armed society in the world with 270 million
of the world's 875 million known gunsabout 90 guns for every 100 citizens (MacInnis, 2007).
Thus, even though the U.S. is only about 4% of the worlds population (Schlesinger, 2013), the
U.S. has about 31% of the worlds guns.
Although violent crime in the U.S. has been decreasing since the mid-1990s, school
rampage shootings have increased (Rocque, 2012). The U.S. is unique among high-income
countries with respect to our level of lethal violence, particularly gun violence (e.g., Wellford,
Pepper, Petrie, 2013). Gun violence is a serious public health concern in the U.S. In 2010 alone
there were about 11,100 homicides, 19,400 suicides, and 600 accidental deaths due to guns
(Kegler, & Mercy, 2013). Next year, the number of gun-related deaths is projected to exceed the
number of traffic-related deaths in the U.S. (Christoff & Kolet, 2012).
Guns are easily purchased in the U.S. with little oversight or regulation. When guns are
not secured, youth and other persons who are susceptible to the misuse of guns can easily access
them. All of these factors give the U.S. the highest rate of gun fatalities among high-income
countriesabout 20 times the average for other high-income countries (Fisher, 2012).
Why Focus on Youth Violence?
There is a characteristic distribution of violent behavior over the life-course. Incidents of
violence increase in frequency during adolescence and early adulthood for a subset of
individuals, and then rapidly and continuously decrease throughout life (Loeber & Farrington,
2012). A disproportionate amount of violent crime in America is committed by 15- to 24-yearolds (FBI Uniform Crime Reports, 2013). Other age groups, such as the elderly, are much less
likely to commit violent crimes. That is why our report focuses on youth violence. Fortunately,
the large majority of youth never commit a violent crime.
Two Types of Youth Gun Violence: Rampage Versus Street Shootings
Violent rampage shootings in schools differ in dramatic ways from street violence
commonly associated with U.S. inner cities. In this section we contrast the evidence and
characteristics on these markedly different types of youth who shoot to kill. Table 1 contains a
summary of some major differences between these two types of youth violence. Of course, there
are always exceptions to these general differences.
School rampage shootings. Our NSF report was commissioned in the wake of the
Newtown school shooting. This tragedy joined a small but growing list of rampage shootings
committed by youth in schools, but also in other public venues (e.g., movie theaters, shopping
malls, supermarkets). The scale of the loss when these events happen is so devastating and
apparently random that the public and the nations legislators are seeking answers to questions
about causes and potential prevention measures. Yet because these events are rare, most of the
evidence on the features of rampage shooters is based on intensive case history studies as well as
more abstract analyses of databases like that maintained by the Centers for Disease Control on
school-related homicides. This review relies primarliy upon two reviews, one that analyzed all
school shootings from 1970 through 2000 (Newman, Fox, Harding, Mehta, & Roth, 2004), and a
one that analyzed school shootings from the 1950s through 2011 (Rocque, 2012).
School shootings typically occur in stable, close-knit, low-crime, small rural towns with a
less frequent secondary pattern developing in exurbs. The school shooter generally is a white
adolescent male, with no recorded history of disciplinary problems. School shooters typically
have no documented history of medical treatment for mental disorders, although (often in
retrospect) some show signs of early-stage onset of severe mental illness (Newman et al., 2004;
Langman, 2009). Their symptoms are frightening to them, but perhaps because they are aware of
the stigma that accompanies a diagnosis, these young men often conceal their symptoms and go
entirely undiagnosed and untreated. Those who survive into their twenties frequently develop
full blown mental disorders that are immediately recognized. However, symptoms of mental
illness may be overlooked or attributed to the emotional fallout of common adolescent problems
of bullying and social rejection. Indeed, the future shooter may magnify slights and feel severely
depressed and angered by incidents of rejection. It is important to note, however, that millions of
adolescents who have similar experiences and feelings never become school shooters.
Although the small sample size makes it difficult to generalize about the perpetrators,
school shooters are often above average in intelligence and academic achievement (Newman et
al., 2004). At the same time, school shooters often lack social attributes and physical skills (e.g.,
athletic prowess) that are highly valued by peers (Newman et al., 2004).
School shooters are commonly assumed to be loners who act out of anger, but
ethnographic and archival research on these rare events indicates otherwise (Newman et al.,
2004). Most often, school shooters are adolescent boys who have a long history of trying to join
peer groups, but find themselves continuously rebuffed. They are socially awkward, but not
disengaged. In fact, their sense of self and well-being appears excessively contingent on the
groups view of them. This painful social position often leads to clown-like behavior or bullying,
both designed to get attention or capture social status and peer acceptance. However, such
attention-attracting behavior can result in further rejection and victimization by peers. More
often than not, shooters sit on the margins, experiencing repeated letdowns as whatever brief
episodes of social achievement (a friendly gesture, a moment of inclusion) melt away and the
long quest for acceptance begins again (Newman et al., 2004).
Shooting classmates and teachers may take on the status of a script or template which,
when shared secretively with peers, becomes a last ditch effort to gain attention and acceptance
(Newman et al., 2004). Scripts are knowledge structures stored in memory that contain
information about how to behave in different situations (Abelson, 1981). In films and plays,
scripts tell actors and actresses what to say and do on stage. In memory, scripts serve a similar
function; they define situations and guide behavior. The person first searches his or her memory
to find a script for how to behave in that situation, retrieves the script, assumes a role in the
script, and uses the script as a guide for behavior. Scripts can be learned by direct experience or
by observing others, such as parents, siblings, peers, and media characters.
Relying on the dangerous and alluring anti-hero figure that are sometimes depicted in the
media, school shooters seem to be making a final effort to gain entrance into social cliques that
have held them at arms length. Indeed, in some cases studies, it appears that members of these
social groups tacitly manipulate the marginal boy, almost instructing him on how to play this role
(Newman et al., 2004). Police sometimes consider charging these bystanders as co-conspirators,
but this rarely transpires because the evidence of actual collaboration is hazy, and bystanders say
they thought the killer was only engaging in fantasy talk. The general point here is that there is
a social drama unfolding around the shooting is less about murder than about social acceptance
and media imagery that links masculinity to violence and fame. School shooters generally do not
10
personally know anyone who has killed before, and they are not imitating individuals they know.
They might, however, immitate other rampage shooters or media characters.
Fame may be a compelling motive for school shooters. In an interview following the
Newtone shooting, Harvard Professor Steven Pinker said, It is a guaranteed way to get fame. In
fact, it's the only guaranteed way to gain fame. If you decide your life is worth nothing, you're a
nobody, you haven't made a difference, and you want to do something that guarantees that your
name will be on the lips of everyone in the country, what are your options? There's only one, and
that is kill a lot of innocent people (NOVA, 2012). It is almost as if school shooters want to be
on the world stage. As one writer noted, school shootings are distinct because they are
theatrical, tragic and pointless (Fast, 2008, p. 11).
Many high school shooters are obsessed with guns, and gain access to them by stealing
from their parents (Newman et al., 2004). Older rampage shooters, such as those who are in
college, turn to the Internet, gun shows, and other means of legal acquisition of guns.
Rampage shooters also often kill themselves after killing as many victims as they can
(Vossekull et al., 2002; Everytown for Gun Safety, 2014; Fast, 2008; Lang, 2009). Although
murder-suicides are generally rare (Eliason, 2009), when they do occur they are
disproportionately likely to involve multiple homicide victims (Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, 2012a). That is, people who commit homicide followed by suicide tend to leave
more homicide victims than those who only commit homicide.
Youth suicide rates rose dramatically in the 1960s and have remained stubbornly high
since that time (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012b; Romer & Jamieson, 2003).
Although rates of suicidal ideation among youth are higher than for other age groups, what
distinguishes perpetrators of murder-suicide is their co-occurring hostile ideation reflecting long-
11
standing resentments towards others (Vossekull et al., 2002). Thus, it is not surprising that
suicidal persons who commit homicide tend to be more lethal toward others than those who only
commit homicide. Many school shooters apparently want to commit suicide, but either cannot
bring themselves to do it (so they let police officers kill them instead), or want to make a
spectacle of the event (Fast, 2008; Langman, 2009; Newman et al., 2004).
Given the widespread media attention to rampage shooting events, it is possible that
extensive news coverage encourages contagion among vulnerable youth. Considerable research
supports the existence of suicide contagion resulting from press coverage of public acts of
suicide, especially in youth and young adults (Romer et al., 2006). Intense media coverage may
also encourage imitation among those youth with suicidal-homicidal ideation. At the same time,
media attention can alert the public, including school children that may be privy to threats of
violence, about the seriousness of what they hear and the importance of reporting it. Media
attention to shootings provokes a spike in reporting threats, which can lead to an increase in the
interceptions of shooters before they carry out their plans. More needs to be known about the
nature of media coverage of rampage shootings in order to increase helpful and decrease harmful
media coverage of violence against self or others.
Street shootings. The data base for street violence comes from decades of social science
research. In contrast to school shooters, urban street shooters more commonly live in densely
populated areas with high crime levels and low social trust levels (Sharkey & Sampson, 2010).
Urban youth street shooters often have histories of behavioral difficulties in childhood (Loeber et
al., 2005). Youth in these settings tend to be non-white and come from high poverty
neighborhoods, often plagued by illicit drug and gun markets, high rates of incarceration, and
few opportunities for well-paying jobs or for advancement through education (Harding, 2010).
12
Street shooters often have strong loyalties to their neighborhood turfs. They are usually
engaged in contests of wills with known antagonists. They are rarely involved in random acts of
violence, but instead aim to hurt or kill individuals they know (Harding, 2010). They too may be
motivated by images of masculinity and dominance, but where inner-city street shootings are
concerned, fantasy and reality are more likely to blend in a toxic brew of scripts of interpersonal
and intergroup violence well-known among all involved. Violent behavior on the street may
well blend media images with the real thing in communities where the fear and horrible
consequences of gun violence are unfortunately routine facts of everday life rather than a
commercial trope (Anderson 1999; Harding, 2010; Jones 2010).
Another difference between school shooters and street shooters is where they obtain
weapons. Young street shooters obtain weapons from people they know (e.g., peers), but usually
through an illegal gun market (Webster et al., 2002). They are less likely than school shooters to
have acquired them surreptitiously, without the knowledge of the owner. In addition, street
shooters rarely commit suicide after shooting others (Harding, 2010).
Risk Factors for Youth Violence
When any kind of gun violence occurs, it is only natural for citizens and policy makers to
seek to identify the cause. However, as President Obama noted, violent behavior is very
complex and influenced by multiple causal factors, often acting together. The more extreme the
violent behavior (e.g., from hitting, to shooting, to rampage shooting), the more complex the
causality may be. Following the Newtown shooting, Congress and the popular press focused on
three risk factors for school shootings: (1) access to guns, (2) exposure to violent media, and (3)
mental health. However, we expanded this list and focused on two major categories of risk
factors: (1) characteristics of the individual (e.g., sex of perpetrator; neurobiological factors;
13
personality traits; mental illness), and (2) contextual variables (e.g., access to guns; exposure to
violent media; family influences; social rejection and peer hierarchies; poverty, respect, dignity,
and social trust). This list of risk factors is certainly not exhaustive. In addition, risk factors often
co-occur and interact. Violent acts often are the product of interactions among individual and
contextual risk factors.
Many characteristics associated with youth violence apply to both school and street
shooters, although others may not. In this section, we discuss risk factors for youth violence,
noting wherever possible how the individual and contextual risk factors for those who commit
rare rampage school violence differ from those of more common street violence.
Individual Risk Factors for Youth Aggression and Violence
Sex of perpetrator. Although females can and do commit violent crimes, the
overwhelming majority of violent crimes are committed by males, with the highest rates among
males ages 15 to 24 (Uniform Crime Reports, 2013). Young men are in a particularly sensitive
part of the life cycle in which their sense of masculinity is developing in the context of popular
media that glorifies violence and domination of others (Kimmel & Mahler, 2003). It is often the
least physically developed young boys who lose out in pecking orders that value height, big
muscles, athletic prowess, and mature looks (Newman et al., 2004). Guns become a great
equalizer in this tournament of recognition (Harcourt, 2006).
Neurobiological factors. Neurobiological risk factors have long been implicated in
youth violence. These include neurocognitive deficits, perinatal complications, genetic risks, and
psychophysiological differences (e.g., low resting heart rate), among others (Glenn & Raine,
2014). Rapid advancements in technologies for imaging the human brain, assaying biomarkers,
14
and studying gene-expression in neuroscience and epigenetics are making it possible to study
neurobiological risk processes in much greater detail, as well as the complex interplay of social
context and biological variation that could influence the development of violent behavior, such
as gene by environment interactions. Additionally, many well-established behavioral risk factors
for aggression and violence (e.g., poor self-control, stress-reactivity) are now being studied at
multiple levels of analysis, including at the level of genetic and neurobiological processes.
Concomitantly, there is expanding interest in neurobiological protective factors with respect to
aggression and violence.
A complex network of genetic, endocrine, and environmental factors influence the brain
structures involved in behavior and moral decision-making (Fumagalli & Priori, 2012). There is
now a greater understanding about how chronic and traumatic stress resulting from adverse
childhood experiences (e.g., family violence and conflict, child physical abuse and neglect,
sexual abuse, traumatic separation from caretakers, social isolation, bullying, peer rejection) can
shape the development and functioning of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis
in ways that compromise adaptive responses to stress (Lupien, McEwen, Gunnar, & Heim,
2009). Such atypical development of the HPA axis is associated with aggression, impulsiveness,
and mood disorders in humans and other animals (Veenema, 2009). However, research is
providing evidence of epigenetic and gene-environment interaction effects that moderate the
impact of chronic stress on neural mechanism revealing both how stress resilience and stress
vulnerability develop (Champagne & Mashoodh, 2009; Feder, Nestler, & Charney, 2009).
Neuroimaging research on normative brain development is helping shed light on why
youth in general, and some youth in particular, may be susceptible to risky behavior including
aggression and violence. Adolescent risky decision making may be facilitated by imbalances in
15
the rates of development of the earlier maturing subcortical regions implicated in processing
affect, threat and rewards (e.g., amygdala and nucleus accumbens) and the more slowly maturing
prefrontal cortical regions implicated in behavior supporting ones long-term goals (Mischel &
Ayduk, 2004; Casey, Jones, & Hare, 2008). That is, the prefrontal cortex may not be sufficiently
mature to regulate strongly activated reward, affect, and threat regions during adolescence. Of
course, within this normative pattern, there is considerable variation. Some individuals show
characteristic heightened stress reactivity supported by compromised HPA-axis development and
associated amygdala activity, as well as reduced ability to harness the prefrontal cortical regions
that support mature decision making over impulsive overreactions (Berman et al. 2013).
Evidence is accumulating that prosocial, affiliative, and reconciliatory behaviors are
supported by interacting social and neurological systems. Enlarged amygdaloid nuclei, for
example, receive cortical input and sensory information from temporal association areas (Barger
et al., 2012; Fumagalli & Priori, 2012). These structuresparticularly the lateral amygdaloid
nucleusappear to be related to increased cortical input and the processing of emotion within
highly communicative social networks (Barger et al., 2012).
Youth whose brains have been functionally and structurally altered by chronic stress,
depression, or both, and who are living in the absence of regular interaction with trusted peers
and adults, may be more affected by social threats that can lead to violence.
Personality traits. One of the best predictors of future behavior is past behavior. Thus, it
is not surprising that individuals who are characteristically aggressive are more likely to engage
in later aggressive acts (e.g., Anderson & Bushman, 1997). Individual differences in
aggressiveness become detectable by the late preschool and early elementary school years (e.g.,
Eron, Walder, & Lefkowitz, 1971; Huesmann, Eron, Lefkowitz, & Walder, 1984). Although
16
overall levels of aggression and violence decrease sharply after age 25, there is considerable
stability in individual differences in aggressiveness (e.g., Huesmann, Dubow, & Boxer, 2009;
Loeber & Farrington, 2012). Indeed, individual differences in aggressiveness are almost as stable
over time as individual differences in intelligence (Olweus, 1979). For example, one study
reported 22-year correlations of .50 for males and .35 for females (Huesmann et al., 1984).
Individual differences in self-control are among the strongest and most consistent
observed individual correlates of crime, delinquency, violence, and other problem behaviors
(Gottfredson, 2005; Loeber & Farrington, 2012; Pratt & Cullen, 2000). Much violent behavior is
short-sighted, and seemingly adventitious. It produces little gain but it engenders considerable
long-term negative consequences for the perpetrator. Many acts of violence among urban youth
are not planned long in advance, but instead erupt so suddenly that they seem to be nearly
spontaneous (even to the offender, in hindsight). Frequently, alcohol or other drugs are involved.
In contrast, rampage shootings tend to be planned and deliberate (Cornell et al., 2013).
Three other personality traits are broadly related to aggression and violence, the so-called
Dark Triad of Personalitynarcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism (Paulhus &
Williams, 2002). The term narcissism comes from the mythical Greek character Narcissus who
fell in love with his own image reflected in the water. Narcissists have inflated egos, and they
lash out aggressively against others when threatened (e.g., Bushman & Baumeister, 1998). It is a
common myth that aggressive people have low self-esteem (Bushman et al., 2009). Actually,
many violent individuals think they are special people who deserve special treatment. When
narcissists dont get the special treatment they think they deserve, they lash out aggressively
against others (e.g., Bushman & Baumeister, 1998). One study found that violent criminals had
much higher levels of narcissism (but not lower levels of self-esteem) than other young men
17
(Bushman & Baumeister, 2012). Interestingly, narcissism levels in young adults have been
increasing sharply since the late 1970s (Twenge, Konrath, Foster, Campbell, & Bushman, 2008).
Psychopaths show a pervasive disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others. They
are callous and unemotional individuals. A growing body of evidence indicates that callousunemotional traits that are the antithesis of empathy in youth are associated with earlier onset of
antisocial behavior and violence (Frick, Ray, Thornton, & Kahn, 2013; Loeber et al. 2005). These
traits also show considerable stability over time. Psychopaths mainly focus on obtaining their own
goals, regardless of whether they hurt others in the process. Psychopaths are more likely to
engage in premeditated acts of aggression and violence than in impulsive acts (Nouvion, Cherek,
Lane, Tcheremissine, & Lieving 2007). Because most murders are impulsive, psychopaths are not
frequently murderers, though they are violence prone (Hare & McPherson, 1984; Williamson,
Hare, & Wong, 1987). If children with psychopathic traits are induced to focus on the pain and
suffering they inflict on others (something they normally dont do), they behave less aggressively
(van Baardewijk, Stegge, Bushman, & Vermeiren, 2009).
Machiavellianism comes from the Italian philosopher and writer Niccol Machiavelli,
who advocated using any means necessary to gain raw political power, including aggression and
violence. Machiavellianism is positively related to bullying in school and other aggressive acts
(Andreou, 2004; Russell, 1974).
A common feature of the dark triad personality traits is lack of empathy for others, which
is one of the strongest deterrents against violence. Interestingly, empathy levels in young adults
have been decreasing sharply since the late 1970s (Konrath, OBrien, & Hsing, 2011).
Mental illness. When school shootings occur, the shooters are often portrayed in the
media as having some form of severe mental illness, and indeed the available evidence suggests
18
that some are at the onset of what may become a serious disorder if they survive (Newman et al.,
2004; Rocque, 2012). However, drawing conclusions about the specific link between school
shootings and severe mental illness remains premature, because the necessary data has not been
systematically collected (Applebaum, 2013). Although severe mental illness is linked with
somewhat higher risk of violent acts, only a small proportion of all violent acts are due to severe
mental illness (Appelbaum, 2013). Of these acts, few involve guns (Appelbaum & Swanson,
2010). In fact, evidence to date suggests that a lifetime diagnosis of a severe mental illness may
add little additional risk of violence, especially if the individual is in remission or is receiving
treatment (Appelbaum & Swanson, 2010). The factors predictive of future violence among the
severely mentally ill are similar to those that predict violence in the general population (e.g.,
being male, substance abuse, prior history of violence, history of childhood maltreatment, recent
stressful life events involving rejection, loss and failure, tendency to react to perceived threat
with anger and violence rumination) (Elbogen & Johnson, 2009; Nestor, 2002; Steadman et al.,
1998; VanDorn, Volavka, & Johnson, 2012). Future research will need to examine the
circumstances under which mental illness is linked to youth violence.
Contextual Risk Factors for Youth Aggression and Violence
Access to guns. In the United States in 2011, 84% of homicide victims ages 15-24 were
killed with guns (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 2011). The frequent
involvement of guns in lethal youth violence and the ability of guns to inflict more lethal wounds
than other personal weapons suggest that gun availability is an important cause of youth
homicides. There are methodological challenges to making causal inferences about the positive
association between gun availability and homicide risks (National Research Council, 2005);
however three types of evidence point in the direction of causation. First, high levels of gun
19
ownership and much more lax gun control laws in the U.S. likely make unsupervised access to
handguns more available to youth within the U.S. compared with other high-income countries.
Although nonlethal rates of crime and violence in the U.S. as well as fighting by high school
students are similar to that of other high-income countries (Smith-Khuri et al., 2004; Block
1993), youth homicides committed with guns are more than 42 times higher in the U.S. than in
other high-income countries (Richardson & Hemenway, 2011).
Second, a study comparing homicide rates across U.S. states, which controlled for other
risk factors for lethal violence (e.g., economic and social resource deprivation, racial
composition, alcohol use, rates of nonlethal violent crime), found that for every 1% increase in
household gun ownership youth homicides committed with guns increased by 2.4% (Miller,
Hemenway, & Azrael, 2007). It can be difficult to discern the independent effects of gun
ownership from those of lax gun laws that make it easier for youth to access guns, because states
with the highest prevalence of gun ownership typically have the most lax gun laws. Both likely
play a role in youths unsupervised access to guns and associated risks for lethal violence
(Webster, Vernick, & Bulzachelli, 2009).
Third, temporal changes in illegal gun availability to youth coincide with temporal
changes in youth homicide. The extraordinary increase in youth homicides that occurred in the
late 1980s and early 1990s was largely driven by homicides committed with guns, and was
geographically concentrated in urban areas where street shootings are prevalent. This sharp
increase in youth homicides with guns, concentrated among Black males, mirrored trends in
arrests for illegally carrying guns and deaths due to gun suicides and accidental shootings
(Blumstein & Cork, 1996). Similarly, the dramatic reduction in juvenile-involved murders
between 1994 to 1999 and leveling off since then has closely mirrored trends for juvenile arrests
20
for weapons violations, almost all of which are for illegal possession of a gun (Snyder, 2011).
Policing strategies designed to detect and deter illegal gun carrying in high-risk settings have
consistently been shown to reduce gun violence (Koper & Mayo-Wilson, 2006). Youth also
report that their awareness of these police practices curtail their gun carrying (Freed, Webster,
Longwell, Carrese, & Wilson 2001). Although targeted initiatives with relatively small and welltrained police units have proven to be effective in reducing gun violence, broader initiatives such
as stop and frisk in New York City have proven to be very contentious because they are
vulnerable to racial bias in their application (e.g., Gelman, Fagan, & Kiss, 2007). If these
approaches lead to harassment and racial profiling, they could decrease community trust of
police officers.
Gun availability for school shooters occurs differently from that of street shooters, but is
no less important. Most school shooters under 18 steal guns from their parents or other relatives
(Newman et al., 2004). Thus, it is especially important for parents and relatives to keep guns at
home carefully secured.
Exposure to violent media. Public debate on the link between violent media and youth
violence can become especially contentious in the wake of a shooting rampage. In many
rampage shootings, the perpetrator puts on a uniform (e.g., hockey mask, trench coat, movie
costume, military uniform), as if following a media script. The perpetrator then collects several
guns and ammunition, goes to a public place, kills as many people as possible, and then often
kills himself (or is killed by the police). It is tempting for some to conclude that violent media
caused the shooting rampage. However, it is not possible to make causal inferences about the
link between exposure to violent media and violent criminal behavior because it is unethical to
conduct experimental studies in which research participants can commit violent crimes.
21
One can, however, draw causal inferences about the link between exposure to media
violence and aggressive behavior in milder forms than violence. Hundreds of studies have shown
that exposure to media violence is a significant risk factor for aggressive behavior in youth, and
experimental studies indicate that the link is causal (e.g., for meta-analytic reviews see Anderson
et al., 2010; Bushman & Huesmann, 2006; Greitemeyer & Mgge, 2014). Studies also have
shown that parents who set limits on the amount and content of childrens media use provide a
powerful protective factor against aggression (e.g., Gentile & Bushman, 2012).
Violent media often contain guns, and research has shown that the mere presence of guns
can increase aggression, even at a subliminal level (e.g., Subra, Muller, Bgue, Bushman, &
Delmas, 2010). This effect, called the weapons effect, has been replicated dozens of times
(Bushman, 2003). Recent research indicates that gun violence in PG-13 films (for ages 13+) has
tripled since the rating was introduced in 1985 to the point that it now exceeds the level found in
R-rated films (for ages 17+) (Bushman, Jamieson, Weitz, & Romer, 2013). Thus, violent media
could produce a weapons effect by exposing youth to guns in ways that glorify their use.
There is also a downward spiral between aggression, rejection, and consumption of
violent media (Slater, Henry, Swaim, & Anderson, 2003). In particular, aggressive youth tend to
be rejected by nonaggressive peers, and therefore spend more time consuming violent media and
associating with other aggressive youth (who have also been rejected by others), which, in turn,
is associated with even more aggressive behavior.
Although there is a link between exposure to violent media and subsequent aggressive
and violent behavior (e.g., Huesmann, 1986; Huesmann, Moise-Titus, Podolski, & Eron, 2003),
it must be noted that millions of young Americans consume violent media and dont commit
violent crimes. Raising the likelihood of aggression is not equivalent to pushing the viewer down
22
a pathway that leads to violence. Moreover, the "symbolic pathway" by which this association
unfolds has yet to be fully understood. In the case studies of school rampage shootings, exposure
to violent media created a positive link between desirable masculine images and shooting. Rather
than raising an aggressive impulse per se, the pathway worked by celebrating the anti-hero as a
figure to be admired and imitated. In addition, youth who do not comprehend the plot of a heroic
film are more likely to identify with the villain, perhaps because they did not fully understand the
motives of the characters (Calvert, Murray, & Conger, 2004). Taken together, the findings
suggest a need for caution about assuming causal linkages.
According to catharsis theory, exposure to media violence can act as a safety valve by
releasing violent impulses into harmless channels. However, there is little to no scientific
evidence supporting catharsis theory (e.g., Bushman, 2002; Bushman, Baumeister, & Stack,
1999; Geen & Quanty, 1977; Gerbner & Gross, 1976; Russell, 1993). Another theory proposes
that media violence may reduce violent crime by keeping young men off the street (Dahl &
DellaVigna, 2009), but this effect needs to be replicated.
Family influences. Families appear to play multiple roles that may increase or decrease
the risk of youth violence (Dodge et al., 2008; Farrington, Loeber, & Tofti, 2012; Loeber &
Farrington, 1998, 2012; Lsel & Farrington, 2012; Masten, in press; Stoddard et al., 2013; van
Horn & Lieberman, 2012). Many of the best-established risk factors for youth violence are based
in the family, including harsh and rejecting parents, interparental violence, child abuse and
neglect, chaotic family life, inconsistent discipline, and poor monitoring by parents of children
showing early signs of aggression. Moreover, individual risk factors for aggressive or violent
behavior, such as poor self-control, also are related to these family risk factors. Risk factors for
developing violence commonly co-occur and predict multiple negative outcomes, including
23
aggression and other antisocial behaviors, substance abuse, mental health problems, and healthrisk behaviors. suggesting that interventions targeting influential risk factors could have high and
broad return on investment (Evans, Li, & Whipple, 2013; Obradovi, Shaffer, & Masten, 2012).
Factors associated with lower risk for youth violence often implicate the same group of
family and individual attributes. Family protective factors include close attachment bonds with
consistent caregivers, effective and developmentally sensitive parenting (including consistent
disciplinary practices and monitoring), and families operating in ways that children experience as
safe, well-managed, and well-regulated. These factors also have been implicated as protective for
a variety of serious problems, including violence, in high-risk children and youth (Masten, 2007;
Lsel & Farrington, 2012).
Interventions to mitigate risk and promote resilience in children at risk for a variety of
behavioral problems including aggression and violence often target family function and
particularly the quality of caregiving and parenting (Institute of Medicine and National Research
Council, 2011; Loeber & Farrington, 2012; Sandler, Schoenfelder, Wolchik, & MacKinnon,
2011). Results also suggest that interventions targeting family dynamics early in life carry the
potential to cascade forward in time, with spreading benefits to youth and adult outcomes in
multiple domains of adjustment through direct and indirect pathways (Dodge et al., 2008;
Masten & Cicchetti, 2010; Patterson, Forgatch, & DeGarmo, 2010).
Several of the best known prevention efforts in the literature targeting family function
have shown long-term effects in multiple domains, including reduced risk for youth violence
(Welsh et al, 2012). These include the Nurse-Family Partnership (Olds, 2006), parent training on
how to manage challenging child behavior (e.g., Patterson et al., 2010), and Multisystemic
Family Therapy in adolescence (Henggeler et al., 1998).
24
It remains to be established that such interventions would be effective for mitigating risk
for street violence in high-risk urban neighborhoods, because it is unclear how much influence
individual or family factors can exert in extremely high-risk neighborhoods or entrenched gang
cultures of street violence. The benefits of these family-based interventions for preventing
rampage shootings are also unclear. Although family circumstances in rampage shootings are
quite varied, most families exhibited characteristics that have been identified as protective
against serious youth problems including violence (Newman et al., 2004; Rocque, 2012).
Social rejection and peer hierarchies. Status anxieties, a history of social rejection, and
peer hierarchies also can help create conditions that increase the risk of youth violence. Some
evidence suggests that rampage shooters have a history of rejection from relatively small and
cohesive peer networks into which they have sought entry through behaviors intended to curry
favor, but which peers perceive as socially inept (Newman et al., 2004). With regard to street
violence, rejection in the form of disrespect of ones group can lead to collective violence. Youth
may join neighborhood gangs for protection from such violence only to become involved in
dynamics that alternate among protection, predation, and victimization (Rios 2011).
Under most conditions, however, rejection in various formsexclusion, devaluation,
disrespect, bullyingcan lead to aggression but rarely to lethal violence. When rejection occurs
in adverse family, community, and peer circumstances, it can lead individuals to develop a
heightened sensitivity for future threats of rejection, which can increase the likelihood of
aggression and violence (Downey, Freitas, Lebolt & Rincon, 1999; Newman et al., 2004). Peer
rejection may have a stronger impact than rejection from significant others on males than on
females, with the opposite pattern occuring for females (Baumeister & Sommer, 1997). Among
adolescent males, rejection in forms that convey powerlessness and devaluation of ones
25
masculinity may be especially threatening (Bourgois 1996). Research has shown that narcissistic
individuals, who have an inflated but fragile sense of self, often lash out aggressively at others
when they are rejected or humiliated by peers (e.g., Thomaes, Bushman, Stegge, &, Olthof,
2008; Twenge & Campbell, 2003).
Intense reactions to rejection are especially likely for rejection sensitive individuals with
low self-control (Mischel & Ayduk, 2004). One such reaction is impulsively using a lethal
weapon that happens to be accessible. Indeed, youth with a history of being bullied and bullying
others are more likely to report carrying weapons (Bradshaw, Waasdorp, Godweber, & Johnson,
2013; van Geel, Vedder, & Tanilon, 2014). A second reaction is ruminating about a plan for
revenge, which may increase the probability of its implementation (Gollwitzer, 1999). This
outcome may be particularly likely if the school shooter has released warnings about his
intentions in order to gain attention, and fears another episode of rejection if he "backs down"
(Newman et al., 2004).
There are two reasons why rejection may have a more profound effect on youth than
older adults. First, youth is a time when identities form and consolidate. Thus, youth are
particularly vulnerable to identity threat and negative reactions from peers. Second, due in part to
immature brain development, youth is a time of generally risky choices and behavior, especially
in emotionally charged circumstances. The extreme reactivity and risky decision making that
may increase the risk of violence is restricted to a small subset of youth (Frick & Viding, 2009),
and indeed may become evident at any time in the life course in reaction to identity-challenging
stress and factors that may compromise self-control such as substance abuse.
When in a state of heightened threat, the perceived danger posed by the threat source can
become exaggerated (Downey, Mougios, Ayduk, London, & Shoda, 2004). In this state, more
26
extreme responses than are warranted may occur, especially when the resources needed for
exercising self-control are unavailable. Gang-related shootings often occur in the context of
chronic threat. Gang members live with danger and fear, and have little faith in the ability of
police and other authorities to protect them. Older male adults who might otherwise contribute to
creating safe, cohesive communities are disproportionately absent through incarceration, early
death, illness, or substance abuse. Thus, gang members feel they must protect themselves from
danger. They often dull the anxiety that living under stress generates with substances such as
alcohol and street drugs, which only makes things worse by decreasing inhibitions, increasing
existing sensitivities to threat, and increasing impulsive decision making (Coid et al., 2013).
Poverty, respect, dignity, and social trust. In poor urban areas, youth violence can
become a form of rough street justice that occurs in response to failures by the formal justice
system to secure neighborhoods and limited opportunities for youth to generate respect and
dignity among peers. Under these conditions, public youth identities can become linked to
campaigns for respect organized around the capacity to repel or commit peer violence
(Anderson 1999). Strong neighborhood identities and rivalries can lodge such campaigns in the
defense of turf by youth groups and gangs, which escalates violence collectively and leaves
urban spaces a dangerous web of zealously protected territories.
Concentrated poverty, social disorganization, structural inequality, and racial
discrimination may produce a context in inner cities where violence becomes a prominent part of
street life (Anderson, 1999; De Coster, Heimer, & Wittrock, 2006). Parents still play important
roles, but youth (especially those of color) have to navigate a street reality that often models and
supports violence, and a broader society where they must contend with racialized stereotypes of
criminality (Eberhardt, Goff, Purdie, & Davies, 2004). As a consequence, parenting youth who
27
are embedded in a violent street context can be particularly challenging, and even the type of
parenting that typically promotes healthy development might not be sufficient to protect against
youth violence (De Coster et al., 2006).
Urban youth of color often do not trust police and other authorities (Harding 2010),
which can increase the risk of violence (Rios 2011). Even in the most dangerous of inner-city
urban contexts, however, schools remain among the safest places that youth can be. Schools are
especially effective when they cultivate mechanisms of informal social control among youth that
based on social trust, relationship building, and problem solving rather than on formal discipline
(Morrill & Musheno, in press).
Schools become the focus of rampage shootings in small, rural towns because they are
the epicenter of social life for the community and therefore make the ideal stage for attacking
the social order that is perceived by shooters to be against them (Newman et al., 2004). On the
other hand, for street shootings urban street life downplays the centrality of schools and renders
other settings more dramatic places for proving ones manhood.
Data Mining: Can It Predict Youth Violence?
The advent of tools making it possible to search large quantities of data available in
social media through computer algorithms has raised new possibilities for predicting youth
violence. Because social media is often publicly available, data mining algorithmstools for
mining and analyzing large data sets for patterns of interestprovide the means for sifting
through social media data to predict events. Some data mining algorithms are fully automatic,
using computational algorithms that scale to large quantities of data, whereas others combine
automated methods with humans (e.g., domain experts, trained analysts) in the loop to achieve
results beyond what a person or a machine could produce alone (Han, Kamber, & Pei, 2011).
28
Representative data mining tasks include prediction of unknown quantities, modeling the
relationships between variables, and detection of patterns. Prediction of discrete-valued and realvalued quantities are termed classification and regression respectively. These paradigms capture
many of the questions related to youth violence, such as determining whether an individual will
commit a violent act (classification), predicting the rate of gang violence that will occur in an
urban neighborhood (regression), understanding the relationships between various neighborhood
indicators and violence (modeling), or highlighting anomalous communication patterns that may
be predictive of violence (detection). Such patterns include social rejection, expressions of
violent sentiments or intentions, indicators of mental illness, attempts to purchase weapons,
glorification of violence, or suspicious behaviors reported by others (Coppersmith, Harman &
Dredze, 2014). Data mining techniques have multiple potential uses for predicting both youth
violence that occurs in groups, and youth violence that is perpetuated by a single individual
against others. Prediction of group violence (particularly when focused on predicting geographic
areas, such as gang boundaries, which are more likely to have outbreaks of violence in the near
future) has been effectively applied in multiple urban areas, whereas prediction of individuallevel violence (such as school shootings) is a more difficult, and open, problem. Moreover, the
monitoring of social media data, particularly to determine whether the monitored individual is
likely to perpetrate violence, presents challenges to privacy and other serious ethical issues.
Predicting group violence. To date, researchers have successfully developed techniques
for predicting geographic hot-spots of crime in American cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles,
and New York City (Cohen, Gorr, & Olligschlaeger, 2007; Eck, Chainey, Cameron, Leitner, &
Wilson, 2005; Gorr & Harries, 2003; Harries, 1999; Mohler, Short, Brantingham, Schoenberg, &
Tita, 2011; Neill & Gorr, 2007). These techniques work well because urban crime often follows
29
regular patterns, and they have the tremendous benefit of reducing the overall level of street
violence without the cost of violating individual privacy. Most of these techniques rely on data
that is often publicly available, such as aggregate counts of crimes, de-identified crime offense
reports, and 911 emergency telephone calls.
A complementary approach to violence prevention analyzes social network ties. using
social media or other data sources such as co-offending data to identify individuals at high risk of
being victims or perpetrators of street violence (Papachristos & Wildeman, in press). For
example, the Chicago Police Department uses social media data (e.g., Facebook profiles) to map
the relationships between Chicagos most active gang members. The police use the inferred
social network for prediction of homicides and development of interventions targeted at the
individuals at highest risk for involvement in a homicide.
Predicting individual violence. Individual-based surveillance to predict rampage
shootings is inherently much more difficult than place-based surveillance, for several reasons.
First, there is a huge class imbalance problem because rampage shootings are extremely rare.
Even if features are identified that increase an individuals probability of committing violence by
a factor of 10, this may still mean only that 1 in 1,000 individuals displaying these factors may
actually perpetuate violence, whereas huge numbers of individuals displaying these factors will
never perpetuate violence. Second, there may be wide discrepancies in the amount and types of
data available for each individual (e.g., some potentially dangerous individuals may not use
online communication or may not reveal anything predictive). Third, there are large risks to
individual privacy that are difficult to mitigate, which presents both moral and legal concerns.
Successful examples of individual-based crime prediction include the software used in
Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. to predict which individuals on probation or
30
parole are most likely to murder or commit other crimes (Berk, Sherman, Barnes, Kurtz, &
Ahlman, 2009). Such approaches rely on detailed information collected about each offenders
life history and criminal record, and thus will not help prevent first-time offenders. Other
approaches look for suspicious links between individuals (Krebs, 2001), and are potentially
useful for detecting patterns indicative of terrorist activity or organized crime, but not an
individual actor working alone.
Another example is tracking when social media are used to bully others. Cyberbullying is
a form of bullying that occurs in the digital age. Bullying is defined as willful and repeated
aggressive behavior that is persistent, intentional, and involves an imbalance of power and
strength (Hinduja & Patchin, 2010, p. 12; also see Olweus, 1978). Cyberbullying refers to the
use of digital media to bully others, including, but not limited to, flaming, online gossips or
rumors, teasing, reputation destruction, and cyber-ostracism (Hinduja & Patchin, 2009). The use
of social media for cyberbullying creates opportunities to study bullying tracesonline
transcripts of bullying events (Xu, Jun, Zhu, & Bellmore, 2012). Bullying traces may also reveal
when youth resist cyberbullying or even intervene to stop it (Marwick & Boyd, 2011).
In summary, data mining techniques have potential to predict youth violence that occurs
in groups and youth violence that is perpetrated by individuals. However, privacy is a major
issue in predicting the latter and in intervening based on these predictions. Additionally, there are
substantial ethical and legal issues related to identifying false positives in the prediction of any
behavior, particularly those with a low base rate.
Preventing Youth Violence
In this section we offer suggestions on how to reduce youth aggression and violence.
Reduce youth access to guns. About 2/3 of U.S. homicides are committed with guns
31
(FBI Uniform Crime Reports, 2013). Although one can certainly kill people with other weapons
(e.g., knives), one can kill more people much faster with guns than with other weapons. For
example, the same day of the Newtown shooting a man stabbed 22 children in China, but none of
them died (Associated Press, 2012). Guns also increase the physical and psychological distance
between the killer and the victims, which makes killing much easier (e.g., Baumeister, 1997).
Based on the available evidence, four strategies would reduce youth access to guns
(Webster & Vernick, 2013). First, set the minimum age to 21 years for handgun purchase or
possession. Second, require background checks for all gun transactions and handgun purchaser
licensing, with stiffer penalties if illegally transferring a gun to an underage youth. Third, require
that gun owners lock up guns to prevent unsupervised youth access. Fourth, enforce gun laws
and increase youth outreach with violence interruption. One example of violence interruption,
the Cure Violence model (2014), views violence as a learned behavior that often operates like an
infectious disease through social networks. The program applies principles that have been
successful in combatting infectious diseases, including interrupting transmission, identifying and
changing key behaviors of the highest potential transmitters, and changing social norms.
Outreach staff trained to mediate conflicts can interrupt gun violence. Staff members often have
similar backgrounds to the high-risk youth they work with. They provide informal mentoring,
model nonviolent behavior, and referral to risk-reducing programs (e. g., job training, substance
abuse or mental health treatment). Public education and community mobilization complement
the efforts of violence interrupters and outreach workers to promote nonviolent norms.
Street shooters tend to gain access to guns illegally (i.e., from fellow gang members, gun
traffickers, or home burglaries). Rampage school shooters 18 and younger, in contrast, tend to
gain access to guns that are in their own households by stealing legal guns from their parents or
32
other relatives (Newman et al., 2004). College age rampage shooters who are at least age 21 are
often able to acquire guns from licensed gun dealers or from unlicensed private sellers who they
find online or at gun shows (Newman & Fox, 2009). Federal gun laws and the laws in most U.S.
states prohibit a relatively small number of individuals with mental illnessesthose who,
through a legal proceeding, were found to represent a serious threat to themselves or others as a
result of a mental illnessfrom possessing guns. The records for these mental health
disqualifications often are not made available to law enforcement agencies conducting pre-gunsale background checks. As a result, in the case of college shooters, individuals who were known
on campus to have significant mental and emotional problems were perfectly able to access guns
from licensed gun dealers, usually legally.
Although gun safety is an important part of prevention, it is critical not to place too much
confidence in this strategy. Some rampage school shooters took blowtorches to safes, found
cable cutters to slice through security devices, etc. to gain access to guns (Newman et al., 2004).
A very dedicated killer can be difficult to deter via gun control alone. But many people are not
quite that dedicated. They are ambivalent, and anything that raises the stakes and makes it harder
for them to access guns can indeed be an effective part of prevention strategies. In sum, gun laws
are helpful but not sufficient for deterring gun violence in youth.
Family interventions. A common saying is that an ounce (gram) of prevention is worth
a pound (kilogram) of cure. Although not specifically focused on violence, prevention research
focused on crime and delinquency supports the idea that substantial and lasting crime prevention
effects can be achieved by altering early childhood experiences in ways designed to enhance
socialization and monitoring. There are several types of effective programs, ranging from home
visits by nurses to parent training, but those most effective for high-risk youth are those
33
developed specifically for such youth (Dekovic et al., 2011; Greenwood, 2006).
Parent training reduces antisocial behavior and delinquency in children (for a metaanalytic review see Piquero, Farrington, Welsh, Tremblay, & Jennings, 2009). Interventions with
parents that begin early in development (e.g., Olds, 2006) or prior to school entry (WebsterStratton & Taylor, 2001) are particularly promising for reducing harsh or neglectful parenting,
which is a major precursor of aggression and other antisocial behavior. The Triple P (Positive
Parenting Program) intervention has shown success in this regard (Prinz et al., 2009), and a
major effort in the U.K. to make successful parenting interventions available to all families has
shown that these programs can be delivered on a wide scale (Lindsey & Strand, 2013).
Self-control training delivered directly to children can increase self-control and decrease
delinquency (Moffitt, 2011; Piquero, Jennings, & Farrington, 2010). As predicted by self-control
theory and cascade models of development, these interventions could have wide-ranging positive
effects. The risk of violence also is likely to be reduced by interventions focused on developing
social cognitive skills that are intended to increase empathy, problem solving skills, the effective
management of interpersonal conflict, anger management, and alternative ways of interpreting
social cues and coping with rejection and disappointment. Schools have successfully
implemented unversal preventive classroom interventions that improve conduct and reduce risks
for violence, such as the Good Behavior Game (Kellam et al., 2011; Petras et al., 2008).
Programs that start in first grade and continue into adolescence, that intervene with parents and
schools, and that target social skills and other risk factors, can reduce the risk for youth violence
(Conduct Disorders Prevention Research Group, 2011). Efforts are also promising for preschool
programs that can reduce later involvement with the criminal justice system (Dekovic et al.,
2011; Heckman, 2013). Careful evaluations to identify what programs work, and for whom, need
34
to continue (Mihalic, Fagan, Irwin, Ballard, & Elliott, 2004; Piquero et al., 2009).
Minimizing violent media effects. With regards to violent media, the train has left the
station, so to speak. However, parents can reduce the negative impact of violent media on their
children. Typically, parental interventions are placed in one of three groups: (1) instructive
mediation, (2) restrictive mediation, and (3) social coviewing (Valkenburg, Krcmar, Peeters,
& Marseille, 1999). Instructive mediation, which involves parents talking to their children about
violent media content (e.g., alternative means of solving conflict besides aggression, why it is
unrealistic), can reduce the harmful effects of violent media on children (e.g., Nathanson, 2004).
Restrictive mediation involves restricting access to violent media. Parents can use
filtering devices to restrict violent content on television sets and computers. Parents can also
restrict the sheer amount of media exposure. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends
no more than 2 hours per day of entertainment screen time for children 2 to 18 years old, and
no screen time for children under 2 (American Academy of Pediatrics, 1999). They also
recommend that parents establish screen-free zones at home by making sure that there are no
televisions, computers, or video games in childrens bedrooms, and by turning off the television
set during dinner.
Social coviewing involves parents consuming violent media with their children without
discussing it, and can backfire because children assume that violent media must not be harmful if
their parents watch it with them and dont say anything bad about it (Nathanson, 1999).
We recommend establishing an easy-to-understand universal ratings system for all forms
of media, with ratings assigned by child development experts rather than the industry. In
America, the rating system is like alphabet soup, with different ratings used for different forms
of media (e.g., TV-MA for television, R for movies, Ao for video games), and different content
35
codes (e.g., FV, V, S, L, D, AC, AL, GL, MV, V, GV, BN, N, SSC, RP). Often parents do not
understand the ratings. For example, in one survey, only 3% of parents knew that FV meant
fantasy violence, and some even thought it meant family viewing (Kaiser Family
Foundation, 1999). Some countries already do this, such as the Netherlands, which assigns an
age-based rating (e.g., 12+ for children 12 and older) and easy to understand symbols (e.g., a fist
for violence) to all media. The ratings and symbols are assigned by child development experts
rather than by the industry. Media literacy programs can also help children become more
intelligent and critical media consumers. There are several excellent programs already available,
which can be implemented at school or home.
Improving school and community climates. Social scientists, social workers, and law
enforcement agents have been involved in violence prevention activities for decades, ranging
from interdiction of illegal guns to mediation efforts designed to take the temperature down to
shock-oriented programs that introduce young people to the realities of prison life. Providing
positive role models, opportunities for engagement in educational and extracurricular
experiences, and using religious figures or reformed ex-prisoners, are also a means of trying to
persuade youth that violence leads to bad outcomes for themselves, their families, and their
communities (see Matjasko et al., 2012 for review of these programs).
General efforts in schools should focus on creating climates where students feel engaged
and a sense of belonging. Of particular importance is the development of mechanisms that can
build social trust between youth and adults, both in schools and in communities. On campuses,
ensuring that culturally diverse students have access to all academic and extra-curricular
opportunities can break down negative stereotypes among groups and create trust among peers.
There is also a need to recognize and cultivate informal practices of peer conflict management
36
that youth use to solve problems in non-aggressive ways (Morrill & Musheno, in press). School
polices emphasizing suspension and expulsion of youth exhibiting behavioral difficulties (e.g.
zero tolerance or some forms of safe schools policies) can interrupt such informal practices
and marginalize already challenged children, even propelling them on a pipeline to prison
(Bahena et al. 2012). Once in this pipeline, the likelihood of violence increases. Moreover, such
policies tend to differentially punish non-white peer groups, especially African American boys,
which can further marginalize them in school and create the conditions where they will more
likely to resort to aggression and violence to solve peer conflict (Ferguson 2001).
Some programs also focus on children who are underachieving and demonstrating
behavioral difficulties. One example is the Sources of Strength program, in which youth are
trained to recognize and refer suicidal peers to adults for support (Wyman et al., 2010). The
Sources of Strength program could also be adapted for use in violence prevention. In addition,
interventions that increase self-control and active problem solving skills in the face of angerinducing threat should be available to individual students.
Behavioral threat assessment is more effective than profiling based on individual
characteristics. Systems that work with children (e.g., schools, community health centers,
physicians) can benefit by having a behavioral threat assessment protocol in place for identifying
and managing children who are behaving in ways that signal a potential for violence. Advocacy
groups within the community can reduce youth violence and create a sense of cohesion.
Protocols need to be in place to ensure continuity of treatment of youth with serious
mental illness as they move from one system to another (e.g., reenter the community following a
period of incarceration), as well as for ensuring that effective treatment is prioritized when they
come in contact with the child welfare or criminal justice systems.
37
Preventing rampage shootings in schools and communities. Programs and strategies to

prevent rampage shootings are not well developed, in part because the phenomenon itself is of
recent vintage as a recognized category of crime. That said, and given the near impossibility of
predicting who will become a rampage shooter, the most efficacious form of prevention lies in
ensuring that information that something terrible is about to happen is brought to trusted adults
who have the knowledge to respond effectively. This requires encouraging the recipients of
warnings, threats, and other forms of advanced notice to come forward (Newman et al., 2004).
There are many reasonsgenerally tied to the social risks of being labeled a tattle-talethat
dissuade youth from telling adults what they know. The task is complicated by the reputation of
school shooters for saying crazy things to gain attention.
Efforts to alert schools to the potential for hostile action by students have been
implemented in some U.S. states and other countries (e.g., Cornell et al., 2009; Endrass et al.,
2011). Although school shooters often leak their intentions to others in the community (Fein et
al., 2002), these messages are typically not taken seriously. However, the establishment of tip
lines and other mechanisms for reporting such threats appear to uncover potential threats and
avert threats to school safety (Cornell et al., 2009). These programs are similar in intent to efforts
to identify youth at risk for suicide in schools (Cooper et al., 2011). Students, parents, and school
staff are educated about the warning signs of suicidal behavior and encouraged to help potential
victims to get treatment.
Encouraging youth to come forward must be tempered by the understanding that the vast
majority of the time they will be reporting false positives. The language of threat is simply too
common to assume it always means something. But when threats become more specific (in terms
of targets, timing, preparation, etc.), the only real protection is to foster the conditions of trust
38
and confidentiality that will signal to members of the social cliques where they hear threats to
come forward and report the threats.
Zero tolerance policies need to be reconsidered, at least for speech (weapon possession
should never be tolerated). When school systems react to verbal comments with automatic
sanctions, the practice can dissuade students who hear threats from coming forward to report
their concerns out of fear of over-reaction in a climate of a high level of false positives. Shutting
down this information pipeline leaves us in a very vulnerable position because interruption of
plots is essential to prevention. Students need to be encouraged to come forward with what they
know, and anything that disinclines them to do so should be seriously reconsidered.
Schools should look for holistic peer violence interventions. Of particular importance are
mechanisms to cultivate social trust and meaningful, relational ties across different peer groups
and among teachers and students. Such efforts can be grounded in activities (e.g., student clubs)
that include but are not limited to sports where students can be recognized for achieving
collective and individual goals. Schools can involve alumni, local businesses, civic leaders, and
parent groups in such activities. Although trying to predict which specific students will turn into
shooters is futile, schools should focus attention on students who show signs of disturbance or
broadcast an intention to do harm. Of particular importance is ensuring that informal and formal
control systems operate in tandem to respond robustly to both actual and potential bullying and
physical violence (Morrill & Musheno, in press).
Postvention for school shootings. School shootings are devastating, especially to the
communities in which they occur. Based on the available evidence, we offer some general
suggestions about what to do in the aftermath of a school shooting. Media attention often creates
a major problem for school authorities in the aftermath of a shooting. Schools should insist that
39
news organizations pool their resources and send one representative, rather than multiple
reporters to cover rampage school shootings. Media also provide a stage for antisocial youth to
become a star through extreme acts of violence, such as rampage shootings. Their access to
attention through media should be minimized.
Communities should develop post-shooting crisis plans that provide mental health
services on a widespread basis. Educators need to be both well informed about the symptoms of
trauma and open with parents about the importance of counseling. Special attention should also
be paid to the needs of teachers and staff in the wake of a school shooting. They are often
expected to step into the role of counselor or comforter when they are also suffering from trauma
and in need of support. Mental health resources should be available in schools at all times, not
just in the aftermath of a school shooting.
Schools have a legitimate need to reassure the public that security has been restored in
the wake of a school shooting. Different schools have taken different approaches, such as
searching student bags for weapons, adding locks and security personnel at the school entrance,
and building fences around the school property. Although such measures can reassure students
and parents in the short-term, they can also undermine social trust in the long-term and must be
accompanied with other efforts to rebuild trust and meaningful relational ties on school
campuses. Moreover, school rampage shooters are generally people who belong on site because
they are students rather than intruders for whom a perimeter fence is a barrier to action.
Prevention of street shootings. Street shootings involve an extremely difficult set of
both individual and contextual influences that are generally resistant to intervention. Research
suggests that parental efforts to shield children (especially boys) from harmful influences in
concentrated poverty settings are only marginally successful (Fauth et al., 2007; Ingoldsby et al.,
40
2012; Tolan et al., 2003). Reducing the forces that encourage youth violence will require
concerted efforts by police, parents, and other adults to avoid the debilitating effects of
involvement with the juvenile justice system that treats poor and minority youth harshly and
ensnares them (rather than reducing their continued delinquency). The effort currently underway
to reform the juvenile justice system by engaging youth through education and treatment (rather
than punishment) is a strategy that could bear fruit (Models for Change, 2014). Similarly,
support for successful reentry of incarcerated youth and young adults into their communities has
the potential to reduce future violence.
Research conducted with serious youth offenders in urban centers such as Chicago
indicates that youth with substance use problems are particularly likely to experience recidivism
after release into the community (Schubert & Mulvey, 2014). Other research (also in Chicago)
indicates that nearly all youth detained in the juvenile justice system have experienced traumatic
events leading to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and comorbid disorders (Abram et al.,
2013). Such conditions are treatable, but current practice in juvenile detention does not deliver
these treatments in a consistent manner, leaving many youth at risk for further offending
(Schubert & Mulvey, 2014), and high risk for gun violence upon return to their communities
(Teplin et al., 2014).
Directions for Future Research
In our charge from the NSF to write about what we know and dont know about youth
violence, it immediately became apparent that although there is a developed literature on the
topic, there is much that we still do not know. Future research on youth violence is sorely
needed. In this section we describe some of the most urgent directions for future research.
Previous research has shown that when exposed to movie characters that smoke, many
41
youth are more likely to start smoking themselves (e.g., Dal Cin, Stoolmiller, & Sargent, 2012);
the same is true for characters that drink (e.g., Wills, Sargent, Gibbons, Gerrard, & Stoolmiller,
2009). Future research should test whether youth are more interested in acquiring and using guns
after exposure to movie characters that use guns.
Future research should examine what types of individuals are most susceptible to violent
media effects (e.g., youth with certain mental illnesses, males with extremely traditionally
masculine gender roles, very young children, low socioeconomic status youth, youth with poor
self-control, youth who possess guns, youth who fantasize about behaving violently as an
antihero). Future research should also investigate what types of settings facilitate violent media
effects (e.g., playing a violent video game cooperatively vs. competitively vs. alone, 3D
technology, large screens, ultra-realistic characters).
Future research can also investigate whether violent media create a positive orientation
toward an antihero in the manner predicted by social learning theory (Bandura, 1973). Youth
who admire antiheroes in violent media might be more likely to emulate their behavior.
Finally, future research could investigate the effectiveness of possible forms of restrictive
mediation that might help parents protect their children from unwanted exposure to violent media.
The current rating systems for different forms of media used in the U.S. is often confusing to
parents. One approach is to establish a universal rating system for all forms of media that include
ratings by child development experts versus the entertainment industry. Comparisons of the
violence ratings made by these two sources could yield information about the validity, as well as
potential biases, of different kinds of raters. Most rating systems are a double-edged sword
(Bushman & Cantor, 2003). On the one hand, ratings provide parents with information they can
use to make decisions about what media content their children are exposed to. On the other hand,
42
ratings can be like a magnet to attract children to objectionable media content.

A second approach is to compare locked versus unlocked settings for violent content on
media devices (e.g., television sets, computers, video game consoles). The current default is
unlocked, so that users can access any content, including violent content, on any media device
they own. If industry voluntarily changed the system to locked, unwanted exposure to violent
content should decrease. This technique is already available for sexually explicit movies on cable
and satellite television. If industry did not want to make such changes in their default settings,
various approaches to teach and encourage parents to change the settings to locked could be
compared. These kinds of options (e.g., the V-chip) are currently available to parents, but often
are not used. Another possibility is to examine how parents make decisions when setting up their
cable boxes, some of which have a feature to elect parental controls during installation. The
selection of parental controls allows parents to lock or unlock violent content, sexual content,
etc. on their cable box. This feature eliminates the need for a default setting altogether on cable
television. Research could examine the impact of parents decisions during their cable box set-up
on their childrens subsequent exposure to violent content. Taken together, research on these
various kinds of restrictive mediation could shed light on effective ways to reduce violent media
exposure that do not intrude upon broadcaster rights of free speech.
Future research can profit by examining the intersection of hostile and suicidal ideation in
youth as a marker for youth who are at risk for murder-suicide, a common characteristic of
rampage shootings (Everytown for Gun Safety, 2014; Vossekull, et al., 2002). At present, we
know little about how repeated exposure to violent media portrayals, including those that involve
the use of guns, affect youth with both hostile and suicidal ideational tendencies. Do such
portrayals teach youth ways to express their hostile intentions and are these experiences
43
particularly influential among suicidal youth? Finally, does interaction with like-minded peers on
the Internet and other venues increase social support for such hostile action?
Family function appears to play a multitude of roles in generating or mitigating risk for
youth violence and also in promoting pathways of development leading away from antisocial
behavior and violence. Moreover, some of these roles show strong evidence of malleability (e.g.,
parenting skills). However, numerous gaps remain in the literature to inform policy and
interventions to reduce youth violence and promote resilience in those at high-risk for
perpetrating violence. Moreover, the family backgrounds of rampage shooters do not generally
demonstrate the typical markers of familial risk. Indeed, it is precisely the conventional and
many characteristics of families that rampage shooters have come from that generates so much
dismay and puzzlement. For these young people, family functioning appears to be less the issue
than peer group dynamics in combination with individual vulnerabilities that jeopardize
childrens ability to fit in that their families cannot protect them from and are often largely in
the dark about. However, it will be important to gain further systematic information on school
rampage shooters, on those whose plans were interrupted, and on those whose behavior is
deemed to pose a threat. This may be an effective way to develop a a clearer sense of the
individual and contextual factors that increase the risk of rampage shootings.
Similarly, street shootings are heavily concentrated in high-poverty neighborhoods where
parents have little trust in the police, and peer influences are often driven by gang membership
and other turf identities (Goffman, 2014; Harding, 2010). Nevertheless, parents and schools that
can shield children from these harmful influences may be somewhat effective in reducing
involvement in violence (Fauth et al., 2007; Ingoldsby et al., 2012; Tolan et al., 2003).
Research is needed on the role of early childhood experiences on risk for youth violence,
44
including prenatal environment. There is a need to find ways to support the healthy development
of children in vulnerable families. In addition, it is important for communities and policymakers
together with scientists to identify the resources needed for family members with a child or youth
who demonstrates signs of preoccupation with violence.
Research is needed on the best strategies and developmental timing for helping parents to
teach and monitor children effectively in regard to promoting positive child uses of media, good
self-control skills, safe behavior around guns, healthy peer relationships, and other potential
protective factors against violence. Research is needed on improving child welfare systems that
may inadvertently function as violence feeder systems, including the foster care and juvenile
justice systems. It will also be important to further characterize the link between mental illness
and youth violence. It is essential to develop non-stigmatizing ways of ensuring that youth who
would benefit from the early identification of mental health problems that exacerbate risk for
violence to be identified and receive effective interventions.
Research is also needed to understand how the ways in which schools deal with
challenging behavior, that may contribute to the risk of violence when a suspension means that
children are left without any adult supervision. Greater understanding also is needed about how
youth deal with interpersonal peer conflict in school, especially the roles played by social trust,
interpersonal relationships, and peer hierarchies in creating the conditions that lead youth away
from or toward peer aggression. Efforts along these lines could be devoted to basic research and
assessing the efficacy of school-level approaches, such as restorative justice programs, that seek
to facilitate alternative ways of resolving peer conflict without exclusion or violence.
A growing body of theory and evidence implicates the role of community-level factors
for youth violence in urban areas characterized by persistent disadvantage, gang violence, and
45
social disorganization (De Coster et al., 2006). However, little is known about leveraging change
at the community level in such areas to reduce youth violence and promote youth success.
Conclusions
Rampage school shootings are rare. Schools remain the safest place for childrenfar
safer than crossing the street. Even so, the shock that follows from the murders of innocent
children is so threatening to our sense of social order that it calls out for explanation. We are
unlikely to ever understand the depth of alienation and the desire for social status motivating the
shooter, nor will we be able to restore peace of mind to the families and communities that have
experienced these tragedies.
Street shootings take the lives of far more people in one year than all the school rampage
shootings put together. In the understandable rush to speak to the need to understand the rampage
school shooting, we must not lose sight of the fact that in terms of the sheer social cost, the
violence that bedevils the nations poorest neighborhoods is far more costly in terms of human
life, family disruption, and the destabilization of communities that follows from the fear and
daily trauma of living with personal insecurity.
Whether we focus on the rare event or the more ubiquitous forms of violence, we must
acknowledge that gun violence in the U.S. is far higher than in any other high-income country.
The tools of social science are invaluable for understanding the causes and consequences of
violence, and represent the most informed source of policy ideas for combating all kinds of youth
violence. We already understand quite a bit about the etiology of rampage and street violence.
Even so, there is more to be done and all the more reasonin the wake of events like the
Newtown tragedy and those that have occurred since to bend our disciplinary tools and
knowledge to solutions.
46
References
Abelson, R. P. (1981). Psychological status of the script concept. American Psychologist, 36(7),
715-729. DOI:10.1037/0003-066X.36.7.715
Abram, K. M., Teplin, L. A., King, D. C., Longworth, S. L., Emanuel, K. M., Romero, E. G.,
McClelland, G. M.,Olson, N. D. (2013). PTSD, trauma, and comorbid psychiatric
disorders in detained youth. Juvenile Justice Bulletin, available at:
http://www.ojjdp.gov/publications/PubResults.asp?sei=97&PreviousPage=PubResults&st
rSortby=date&p=
American Psychological Association (APA) (2013). Gun violence: Prediction, prevention, and
policy. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/pubs/info/reports/gun-violenceprevention.aspx
American Academy of Pediatrics (1999). Media and children. Retrieved from
http://www.aap.org/en-us/advocacy-and-policy/aap-health-initiatives/Pages/Media-andChildren.aspx
Anderson, E. (1999). Code of the street: Decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city.
New York: Norton.
Anderson. C. A., & Bushman, B. J. (1997). External validity of trivial experiments: The case
of laboratory aggression. Review of General Psychology, 1(1), 19-41. DOI:
10.1037//1089-2680.1.1.19
Andreou E. (2004). Bully/victim problems and their association with Machiavellianism and selfefficacy in Greek primary school children. British Journal of Educational Psychology,
74(2), 297-309. DOI: 10.1348/000709904773839897
Appelbaum, P. (2013). Public safety, mental disorders and guns. Journal of the American
47
Medical Association: Psychiatry, 70(6), 565-566. DOI:

10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2013.315.
Appelbaum, P., & Swanson, J. (2010). Gun laws and mental illness: How sensible are the current
restrictions. Psychiatric Services, 61, 652-654. DOI: 10.1176/appi.ps.61.7.652
Associated Press (2012, December 14). Man stabs 22 children in China. New York Times.
Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/world/asia/man-stabs-22-childrenin-china.html?_r=0
Bahena, S., Cooc, N. Currie-Rubin, R., Kuttner, P., & Ng, M. (2012). Disrupting the school-toprison pipeline. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Educational Review.
Bandura, A. (1973). Aggression: A social learning theory analysis. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall.
Barger, N., Stefanacci, L., Schumann, C. M., Sherwood, C. C., Annese. J., Allman, J. M.,
Buckwalter, J. A., Hof, P. R., & Semendeferi, K. (2012). Neuronal populations in the
basolateral nuclei of the amygdala are differentially increased in humans compared with
apes: a stereological study. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 520(13), 3035-3054.
DOI: 10.1002/cne.23118
Baumeister, R.F. (1997). Evil: Inside human violence and cruelty. New York: W.H. Freeman.
Baumeister, R. F., & Sommer, K. L. (1997). What do men want? Gender differences and two
spheres of belongingness: Comment on Cross and Madson. Psychological Bulletin, 122,
3844. DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.122.1.38
Berk, R. A., Sherman, L., Barnes, G., Kurtz, E., & Ahlman. L. (2009). Forecasting murder
within a population of probationers and parolees: A high stakes application of statistical
learning. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society (Series A), 172(1), 191-211.
48
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-985X.2008.00556.x
Berman, M. G., Yourganov, G., Askren, M. K., Ayduk, O., Casey, B. J., Gotlib, I. H., Kross, E.,
McIntosh, A. R., Strother, S., Wilson, N. L., Zayas, V., Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., &
Jonides, J. (2013). Dimensionality of brain networks linked to life-long individual
differences in self-control. Nature Communications, 4, 1373, DOI:10.1038/ncomms2374
Block, R. (1993). A cross-national comparison of victims of crime: victim surveys of twelve
countries. International Review of Victimology, 2, 183-207. DOI:
10.1177/026975809300200302
Blumstein, A., & Cork, D. (1996). Linking gun availability to youth gun violence. Law &
Contemporary Problems, 59(1), 6-24. DOI: 10.2307/1192207
Bourgois, P. (1996). In search of respect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bradshaw, C. P., Waasdorp, T. E., Godweber, A. & Johnson, S. L. (2013). Bullies, gangs, drugs,
and school: Understanding the overlap and the role of ethnicity and urbanicity. Journal of
Youth and Adolescence, 42(2), 220-234. DOI: 10.1007/s10964-012-9863-7
Bushman, B. J. (2002). Does venting anger feed or extinguish the flame? Catharsis, rumination,
distraction, anger and aggressive responding. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,
28(6), 724-731. DOI: 10.1177/0146167202289002
Bushman, B. J. (2013). The weapons effect. JAMA Pediatrics, 167(12), 1094-1095.
DOI:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2013.3824
Bushman, B. J., & Baumeister, R. F. (1998). Threatened egotism, narcissism, self-esteem, and
direct and displaced aggression: Does self-love or self-hate lead to violence? Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 219-229. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.75.1.219
Bushman, B. J., & Baumeister, R. F. (2002). Does self-love or self-hate lead to violence?
49
Journal of Research in Personality, 36(6), 543-545. DOI: 10.1016/S00926566(02)00502-0

Bushman, B. J., Baumeister, R. F., & Stack, A. D. (1999). Catharsis, aggression, and persuasive
influences: Self-fulfilling or self-defeating prophecies? Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 76, 367-376. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.76.3.367
Bushman, B. J., Baumeister, R. F., Thomaes, S., Ryu, E., Begeer, S., & West, S. G. (2009).
Looking again, and harder, for a link between low self-esteem and aggression. Journal of
Personality, 77(2) (pp. 427-446). DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2008.00553.x
Bushman, B. J., & Huesmann, L. R. (2010). Aggression. In S. T. Fiske, D. T. Gilbert, & G.
Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (5th ed., Ch. 23, pp. 833-863). New York:
John Wiley & Sons.
Bushman, B. J., Jamieson, P. E., Weitz, I., & Romer, D. (2013). Gun violence trends in movies.
Pediatrics, 132(6), 1014-1018. DOI: 10.1542/peds.2013-1600
Bushman, B. J., Newman, K., Calvert, S., Downey, G., Dredze, M., Gottfredson, M., Jablonski,
N. G., Masten, A., Morrill, C., Neill, D. B., Romer, D., & Webster, D. (2013, 1-2
February). Youth violence: What we need to know. Report of the Subcommittee on Youth
Violence of the Advisory Committee to the Social, Behavioral and Economics Sciences
directorate, National Science Foundation. Retrieved from
http://www.research.gov/researchportal/appmanager/base/desktop;jsessionid=zpQlTW2TCvn8FPTJSbn2WMpghSQHRLp
TYNl8r23RjFLYwjhTFk9R!1485876229!1909998894?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=assetsInTheStates_1&_urlType=
action&wlpassetsInTheStates_1_action=selectAwardDetail&wlpassetsInTheStates_1_id
50
=%2FresearchGov/AwardHighlight/PublicAffairs/2014/24690_Understandingandprevent
ingyouthviolence.html
Calvert, S.L., Murray, K., & Conger, E. (2004). Heroic DVD portrayals: What American and
Taiwanese adolescents admire and understand. Journal of Applied Developmental
Psychology, 25(6), 699-716. DOI: 10.1016/j.appdev.2004.09.004
Casey, B. J., Jones, R. M., & Hare, T. A. (2008). The adolescent brain. Annals of the New York
Academy of Sciences. 1124, 111-126. DOI:10.1196/annals.1440.010.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2012b). Death rates for suicide, by sex, race,
Hispanic origin, and age: United States, 1950-2010. Retrieved from:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/hus/injury.htm.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2012a). Surveillance for violent deathsNational
violent death reporting system, 16 states, 2009. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report,
61(6). 1-43. Retrieved from
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6106a1.htm
Champagne, F. A., & Mashoodh, R. (2009). Genes in context geneenvironment interplay and
the origins of individual differences in behavior. Current Directions in Psychological
Science, 18(3), 127-131. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01622.x
Christoff, C., & Kolet, I. (2012). American gun deaths to exceed traffic fatalities by 2015.
Bloomberg. Retrieved fromhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-19/american-gundeaths-to-exceed-traffic-fatalities-by-2015.html
Cohen, J., Gorr, W. L., & Olligschlaeger, A. M. (2007). Leading indicators and spatial
interactions: a crime forecasting model for proactive police deployment. Geographical
Analysis, 39(1), 105-127. DOI: 10.1111/j.1538-4632.2006.00697.x
51
Cooper, G. D., Clements, P. T., & Holt, K. (2011). A review and application of suicide
prevention programs in high school settings. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 32(11),
696-702. DOI: 10.3109/01612840.2011.597911
Coppersmith, G., Harman, C., & Dredze, M. (2014). Measuring post traumatic stress disorder in
Twitter. International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM). Retrieved
from http://www.cs.jhu.edu/~mdredze/publications/2014_icwsm_ptsd.pdf
Cornell, D., Evans, A. C., Guerra, N. G., Kinscherff, R., Mankowski, E., Randazzo, M. R.,
Scrivner, E., Sorenson, S. B., Tynan, W. D., & Webster, D. W. (2013). Gun violence:
prediction, prevention, and policy: APA panel of experts report. Washington, DC:
American Psychological Association.
Cornell, D., Sheras, P., Gregory, A., & Fan X. (2009). A retrospective study of school safety
conditions in high schools using the Virginia threat Assessment Guidelines versus
alternative approaches. School Psychology Quarterly, 24(2), 119-129. DOI:
10.1037/a0016182
Cure Violence (2014). The Cure Violence health model: Essential elements. Chicago, IL.
Retrieved from http://cureviolence.org/the-model/essential-elements/
Dahl, G., & DellaVigna, S. (2009). Does movie violence increase violent crime? The Quarterly
Journal of Economics, 124(2), 677-734. DOI: 10.1.1.187.3363
Dal Cin, S., Stoolmiller, M., & Sargent, J. D. (2012). When movies matter: Exposure to smoking
in movies and changes in smoking behavior. Journal of Health Communication, 17(1),
76-89. DOI: 10.1080/10810730.2011.585697
Dodge, K. A., Greenberg, M. T., Malone, P. S. (2008). Testing an idealized dynamic cascade
model of the development of serious violence in adolescence. Child Development, 79(6),
52
1907-1927. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01233.x

Downey, G., Lebolt, A., Rincon, C., & Freitas, A.L. (1998). Rejection sensitivity and childrens
interpersonal difficulties. Child Development, 69(4), 1074-1091. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467
8624.1998.tb06161.x
Downey, G., Mougios, V., Ayduk, ., London, B. E., & Shoda, Y. (2004). Rejection sensitivity
and the defensive motivational system: Insights from the startle response to rejection
cues. Psychological Science, 15(10), 668673. DOI: 10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00738.x
Eberhardt, J. L., Goff, P. A., Purdie, V. J., & Davies, P. G. (2004). Seeing black: Race, crime,
and visual processing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(6), 876-893.
DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.87.6.876
Eck, J. E., Chainey, S. Cameron, J. G., Leitner, M., & Wilson, R. E. (2005). Mapping crime:
Understanding hot spots. National Institute of Justice. Retrieved from
http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/11291/1/11291.pdf
Eliason, S. (2009). Murder-suicide: A review of the recent literature. Journal of the
American Academy of Psychiatry Law, 37(3), 371-379. PMID 19767502.
Endrass, J., Rossegger, A., Urbaniok, F., Laubacher, A., Pierce, C. S., & Moskvitin, K. (2011).
Procedures for preventing juvenile violence in Switzerland: The Zurich model. New
Directions for Youth Development, 129:79-87, DOI: 10.1002/yd.388.
Eron, L. D., Walder, L. O., & Lefkowitz, M. M. (1971). The learning of aggression in children.
Boston: Little Brown.
Evans, G. W., Li, D., & Whipple, S. S. (2013). Cumulative risk and child development.
Psychological Bulletin, 139(6), 1342-1396. DOI: 10.1037/a0031808.
Everytown for Gun Safety. (2014). Analysis of recent mass shootings. Retrieved from:
53
http://everytown.org/mass-shootings/
Farrington, D. P., Loeber, R., & Ttofi, M. M. (2012). Risk and protective factors for
offending. In B. C. Welsh & D. P. Farrington (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Crime
Prevention (pp. 46-69). New York: Oxford University Press
Fast, J. (2008). Ceremonial violence: A psychological explanation of school shootings. New
York: The Overlook Press.
Fauth, R. C., Roth, J. L., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2007). Does the neighborhood context alter the link
between youths after school time activities and development outcomes? A multilevel
analysis. Developmental Psychology, 43(3), 760-777. DOI: 10.1037/0012-1649.43.3.760.
FBI Uniform Crime Reports (2013). Washington, DC: U. S. Government Printing Office.
Feder, A., Nestler, E. J., & Charney, D. S. (2009). Psychobiology and molecular genetics of
resilience. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 446-457. DOI:10.1038/nrn2649
Fein, R., Vossekuil, B., Pollack, W., Borum, R., Modzeleski, W., & Reddy, M. (2002). Threat
assessment in schools: A guide to managing threatening situations and to creating safe
school climates. Washington, DC: U. S. Secret Service and Department of Defense.
Fisher, M. (14 December 2012). Chart: The U.S. has far more gun-related killings than any other
developed country. The Washington Post, Retrieved from
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/14/chart-the-u-s-has-farmore-gun-related-killings-than-any-other-developed-country/
Frick, P. J., Ray, J. V., Thornton, L. C., & Kahn, R. E. (2013). Annual research review: A
developmental psychopathology approach to understanding callous-unemotional traits in
children and adolescents with serious conduct problems. Journal of Child Psychology
and Psychiatry. DOI:10.1111/jcpp.12152
54
Freed L. H, Webster, D. W., Longwell, J. J, Carrese, J, & Wilson, M. H. (2001) Deterrents to

gun acquisition and carrying among incarcerated adolescent males. Archives of Pediatric
and Adolescent Medicine, 155(3), 335-341. PMID: 11231798
Geen, R. G., & Quanty, M. B. (1977). The catharsis of aggression: An evaluation of a
hypothesis. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 10,
pp. 1-37). New York: Academic Press.
Gelman, A., Fagan, J., & Kiss, A. (2007). An analysis of the New York city police departments
stop-and-frisk policy in the context of claims of racial bias. Journal of the American
Statistical Association, 102(479), 813-823. DOI: 10.1198/016214506000001040
Gentile, D. G., & Bushman, B. J. (2012). Reassessing media violence effects using a risk and
resilience approach to understanding aggression. Psychology of Popular Media Culture,
1(3), 138-151. DOI:10.1037/a0028481
Gerbner, G., & Gross, L. (1976). Living with television: The violence profile. Journal of
Communication, 26(2), 173-199. DOI: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.1976.tb01397.x
Glenn, A. L., & Raine, A. (2014). Neurocrimiology: implications for the punishment, prediction
and prevention of criminal behavior. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 15, 54-63. DOI:
10.1038/nrn3640.
Goffman, A. (2014). On the run: Fugitive life in an American city. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999). Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans. American
Psychologist, 54(7), 493-503. DOI: 10.1037/0003-066X.54.7.493
Gorr, W. L., & Harries, R. (2003). Introduction to crime forecasting. International Journal of
Forecasting, 19, 551-555. DOI: 10.1016/S0169-2070(03)00089-X
55
Gottfredson, M. 2005. The Empirical Status of Control Theories in Criminology. In Francis

Cullen et al., (Eds.), Taking stock: The empirical status of theory in criminology. New
Brunswick: Transaction.
Greenwood, P. (2006). Changing lives: Delinquency prevention as crime-control policy.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Greitemeyer, T., & Mgge, D. O. (2014). Video games do affect social outcomes: A metaanalytic review of the effects of violent and prosocial video game play. Personality and
Social Psychology Bulletin, 40, 578-589. DOI: 10.1177/0146167213520459
Han, J., Kamber, M., & Pei, J. (2011). Data mining: Concepts and techniques (3rd ed.)
Burlington, MA: Morgan Kaufmann.
Harcourt, B. E. (2006). Language of the gun: Youth, crime, and public policy. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Harding, D. J. (2010). Living the drama: Community, conflict, and culture among inner-city
boys. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hare, R. D., & McPherson, L. M. (1984). Violent and aggressive behavior in criminal
psychopaths. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 7(1), 35-50.
DOI:10.1016/0160-2527(84)90005-0
Harrell, W. A. (1980). Retaliatory aggression by high and low Machiavellians against remorseful
and non-remorseful wrongdoers. Social Behavior and Personality, 8(2), 217-220. DOI:
10.2224/sbp.1980.8.2.217
Harries, K. (1999). Mapping crime: Principle and practice. National Institute of Justice.
Heckman, J. J. (2013). Giving kids a fair chance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Henggeler, S. W., Schoenwald, S. K., Borduin, C. M., Rowland, M. D., & Cunningham, P. B.
56
(1998). Multisystemic treatment of antisocial behavior in children and adolescents. Guilford

Press.
Hinduja, S., & Patchin, J. W. (2010). Bullying, cyberbullying, and suicide. Archives of Suicide
Research, 14(3), 206-221. DOI: 10.1080/13811118.2010.494133
Hinduja, S., & Patchin, J. W. (2009). Bullying beyond the schoolyard: Preventing and
responding to cyberbullying. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications (Corwin Press).
Huesmann, L. R. (1986). Psychological processes promoting the relation between exposure to
media violence and aggressive behavior by the viewer. Journal of Social Issues, 42(3),
125-139. DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1986.tb00246.x
Huesmann, L. R., Dubow, E. F., & Boxer, P. (2009). Continuity of childhood, adolescent, and
early adulthood aggression as predictors of adult criminality and life outcomes:
Implications for the adolescent-limited and life-course-persistent models. Aggressive
Behavior, 35(2), 136-149. DOI: 10.1002/ab.20300
Huesmann, L. R., Eron, L. D, Lefkowitz, M. M., & Walder, L. O. (1984). Stability of aggression
over time and generations. Developmental Psychology, 20(6), 11201134. DOI:
10.1037/0012-1649.20.6.1120
Huesmann, L. R., Moise-Titus, J., Podolski, C. L., & Eron, L. D. (2003). Longitudinal relations
between childrens exposure to TV violence and their aggressive and violent behavior in
young adulthood: 19771992. Developmental Psychology, 39(2), 201-221. DOI:
10.1037/0012-1649.39.2.201
Ingoldsby, E. M., Shelleby, E. Lane, T., & Shaw, D. S. (2012). Extrafamilial contexts and
childrens conduct problems. In V. Maholmes, & R. B. King (Eds.), The Oxford
handbook of poverty and child development (pp. 404-422). New York: Oxford University
57
Press.
International Center for Prison Studies (2013). Countries with the largest number of prisoners per
100,000 of the national population, as of 2013. Retrieved from
http://www.statista.com/statistics/262962/countries-with-the-most-prisoners-per-100000-inhabitants/
Institute of Medicine (IOM) and National Research Council (NRC). (2011). Toward an
Integrated Science of Research on Families: Workshop Report. Committee on the Science
of Research on Families. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Kaiser Family Foundation. (1999). Parents and the V-chip: A Kaiser Family Foundation survey.
Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED445365.
Kegler, S. R., & Mercy, J. A. (2013). Morbidity and mortality weekly report. Center for Disease
Control and Prevention, 62(3), 597-602. Retrieved from
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6230a1.htm?s_cid=mm6230a1_w
Kellam, S. G., Mackenzie, A. C. L., Brown, C. H., Poduska, J. M., Wang, W., Petras, H., &
Wilcox, H. C. (2011). The Good Behavior Game and the future of prevention and
treatment. Addiction Science and Clinical Practice, 6(1), 74-84. PMC3188824
Kimmel, M. S., & Mahler, M. (2003). Adolescent masculinity, homophobia, and violence:
Random school shootings, 19822001. American Behavioral Scientist, 46(10), 14391458. DOI: 10.1177/0002764203046010010
Konrath, S., OBrien, E., & Hsing, C. (2011). Changes in dispositional empathy in American
college students over time: A meta-analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Review,
15(2), 180-198. DOI: 10.1177/1088868310377395
Koper, C. S., & Mayo-Wilson, E. (2006) Police crackdowns on illegal gun carrying: a systematic
58
review of their impact on gun crime. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 2, 227-261.

DOI: 10.1007/s11292-006-9005-x
Krebs, V. E. (2001). Mapping networks of terrorist cells. Connections, 24: 4352. DOI:
10.1.1.16.2612
Langman, P. F. (2009). Why kids kill: Inside the minds of school shooters. New York, NY:
Palgrave, MacMillan.
Lindsay, G., & Strand, S. (2013). Evaluation of the national roll-out of parenting programmes
across England: the parenting early intervention programme (PEIP). BMC Public Health,
13(1), 972-989. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2458-13-972
Loeber, R., & Farrington, D. P. (1998). (Eds.). Serious and violent juvenile offenders: Risk
factors and successful interventions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Loeber, R., & Farrington, D. P. (Eds.). (2012). From juvenile delinquency to adult crime:
Criminal careers, justice policy, and prevention. New York: Oxford University Press.
Loeber, R., Pardini, D., Homish, D. L., Wei, E. H., Crawford, A. M., Farrington, D. P.,
Stouthamer-Loeber, M., Creemers, J., Koehler, S. A., & Rosenfeld, R. (2005). The
Prediction of violence and homicide in young men. Journal of Consulting and Clinical
Psychology, 73(6), 1074-1088. DOI:10.1037/0022-006X.73.6.1074
Lsel, F., & Farrington, D. P. (2012). Direct protective and buffering protective factors in the
development of youth violence. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 43(2), S8S23. DOI: 10.1016/j.amepre.2012.04.029
MacInnis, L. (2007, August 28). U.S. most armed country with 90 guns per 100 people. Reuters
News. Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/08/28/us-world-firearmsidUSL2834893820070828
59
Matjasko, J. L., Vivolo-Kantor, A. M., Massetti, G. M., Holland, K. M., Holt, M. K., & Cruz, J.
D. (2012). A systematic meta-analytic review of evaluations of youth violence prevention
programs: Common and divergent findings from 25 years of meta-analyses and
systematic reviews. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 17, 540-552. DOI:
10.1016/j.avb.2012.06.006.
Marwick, A., & Boyd, D. (2011). The drama! Teen conflict, gossip, and bullying in networked
publics. Paper presented at the Oxford Internet Institutes A Decade in Internet Time:
Symposium on the Dynamics of the Internet and Society. Oxford, England.
Masten, A. S. (2007). Resilience in developing systems: Progress and promise as the fourth wave
rises. Development and Psychopathology, 19(3), 921-930.
DOI: 10.1017/S0954579407000442
Masten, A. S. (in press). Promoting the capacity for peace in early childhood: Perspectives from
research on resilience in children and youth. In J. F. Leckman, C. Panter-Brick, & R.
Salah (Eds.), Raising a peaceful world: The transformative power of families and child
development. Cambridge MA: MIT Press
Masten, A. S., & Cicchetti, D. (Eds.). (2010). Editorial: Developmental cascades. [Special Issue
on Developmental Cascades, Part 1]. Development and Psychopathology, 22(3), 491-495.
DOI: 10.1017/S0954579410000222
Mihalic, S., Fagan, A., Irwin, K., Ballard, D., & Elliott, D. 2004. Blueprints for violence
prevention. National Criminal Justice Reference Service
Miller, M., Hemenway, D., & Azrael, D. (2007) State-level homicide victimization rates in the
U.S. in relation to survey measures of household firearm ownership, 2001-2003. Social
Science & Medicine, 64, 656-664. DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2006.09.024
60
Mischel, W., & Ayduk, O. (2004). Willpower in a cognitiveaffective processing system: The
dynamics of delay of gratification. In R. F. Baumeister & K. Vohs (Eds.), Handbook of
self-regulation: Research, theory, and applications (pp. 99129). New York, NY:
Guilford Press
Models for Change. (2014). Systems reform in juvenile justice. A program of the John D. and
Catharine T. MacArthur Foundation, available at:
http://www.modelsforchange.net/index.html.
Moffitt, T. E., Arseneault, L., Belsky, D., Dickson, N., Hancox, R. J., Harrington, H., Houts, R.,
Poulton, R., Roberts, B. W., Ross, S., Sears, M. R., Thomson, W. M., & Caspi, A.
(2011). A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(7), 2693-2698. DOI:
10.1073/pnas.1010076108
Mohler, G. O. Short, M.B. Brantingham, P.J. Schoenberg, F.P., & Tita, G.E. (2011). Selfexciting point process modeling of crime. Journal of the American Statistical
Association, 106(493), 100-108. DOI: 10.1198/jasa.2011.ap09546
Morrill, C., & Musheno, M. (in press). Youth conflict: Culture and control in an urban high
school. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Nathanson, A. I. (1999). Identifying and explaining the relationship between parental mediation
and childrens aggression. Communication Research, 26 (2), 124-143. DOI:
10.1177/009365099026002002
Nathanson, A. I. (2004). Factual and evaluative approaches to modifying childrens responses to
violent television. Journal of Communication, 54(2), 321-336. DOI: 10.1111/j.14602466.2004.tb02631.x
61
National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. (2011) Web-based injury statistics and query
and reporting system, fatal injury reports, 1999-2011. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. Retrieved from http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_us.html
National Research Council. (2005) Firearms and violence: A critical review. Committee to
improve research information and data on firearms. In C. F. Welford, J. V. Pepper, & C.
V. Petrie (Eds.). Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
National Research Council and Institute of Medicine (2009). Preventing mental, emotional, and
behavioral disorders among young people: Progress and possibilities. Committee on the
Prevention of Mental Disorders and Substance Abuse Among Children, Youth, and Young
Adults: Research Advances and Promising Interventions. In M. E. OConnell, T. Boat, T., &
K. E. Warner, (Eds.). Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Neill, D. B., & Gorr, W. L. (2007). Detecting and preventing emerging epidemics of crime.
Advances in Disease Surveillance, 4, 13. Retrieved from
http://www.isdsjournal.org/articles/1945.pdf
Newman, K. S., & Fox, C. (2009). Repeat tragedy: Rampage school shootings 2002-2008.
American Behavioral Scientist, 52(9), 1286-1308. DOI: 10.1177/0002764209332546
Newman, K. S. , Fox, C., Harding, D., Mehta, J., & Roth, W. (2004). Rampage: The social roots
of school shootings. NY: Basic Books.
Nouvion, S. O., Cherek, D. R., Lane, S. D., Tcheremissine, O. V., & Lieving, L. M. (2007).
Human proactive aggression: association with personality disorders and psychopathy.
Aggress Behav. 2007 Nov-Dec;33(6):552-62. DOI: 10.1002/ab.20220
NOVA (21 December 2012). Can science predict mass murder? Retrieved from
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/mass-murder.html
62
Obradovi, J., Shaffer, A., & Masten, A. S. (2012). Risk and adversity in developmental
psychopathology: Progress and future directions. In L. C. Mayes, & M. Lewis (Eds.), The
Cambridge handbook of environment in human development environment of human
development: A handbook of theory and measurement (pp. 35-37). New York, NY:
Cambridge University Press.
Olds, D. L. (2006). The nursefamily partnership: An evidence based preventive
intervention. Infant Mental Health Journal, 27(1), 5-25.
Olweus, D. (1978). Aggression in the schools: Bullies and whipping boys. Washington, DC:
Hemisphere (Wiley).
Olweus, D. (1979). The stability of aggressive reaction patterns in males: A review.
Psychological Bulletin, 86(4), 852-875. DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.86.4.852
Owsley Sood, S., Churchill, E. F., & Antin, J. (2012). Automatic identification of personal
insults on social news sites. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and
Technology. 63(2), 270285. DOI: 10.1002/asi.21690
Papachristos, A. V., & Wildeman, C. (in press). Network exposure and homicide victimization in
an African American community. American Journal of Public Health. DOI:
10.2105/AJPH.2013.301441
Patterson, G. R., Forgatch, M. S., & DeGarmo, D. S. (2010). Cascading effects following
intervention. Developmental Psychopathology, 22(4), 941-970. DOI:
10.1017/S0954579410000568.
Paulhus, D. L, & Williams, K. M. (2002). The dark triad of personality: Narcissism,
Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Journal of Research in Personality, 36(6) 556-563.
DOI: 10.1016/S0092-6566(02)00505-6
63
Petras, H., Kellam, S. G., Brown, C. H., Muthen, B. O., Ialongo, N. S., & Poduska, J. M. (2008).
Developmental epidemiological courses leading to antisocial personality disorder and
violence and criminal behavior: Effects by young adulthood of a universal preventive
intervention in first- and second-grade classroom. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 95,
Suppl 1, S45-S59. DOI: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2007.10.015
Piquero, A., Farrington, D., Welsh, B., Tremblay, R. & Jennings, W. (2009). Effects of early
family/parent training programs on antisocial behavior and delinquency. Journal of
Experimental Criminology, 5(2), 83-120. DOI: 10.1007/s11292-009-9072-x
Piquero, A., Jennings, W., & Farrington, D. (2010). On the malleability of self-control:
theoretical and policy implications regarding a general theory of crime. Justice Quarterly,
27(6), 6:803-834. DOI: 10.1080/07418820903379628
Pratt, T. & Cullen, F. (2000). The empirical status of Gottfredson and Hirschis General Theory
of Crime: A meta-analysis. Criminology, 38(3), 931-64. DOI: 10.1111/j.17459125.2000.tb00911.x
Prinz, R. J., Sanders, M. R., Shapiro, C. J., Whitaker, D. J., & Lutzker, J. R. (2009). Populationbased prevention of child maltreatment: The U. S. Triple P System population trial.
Prevention Science, 10(1), 1-12. DOI: 10.1007/s11121-009-0123-3.
Rios, V.M. (2011). Punished: Policing the lives of black and Latino boys. New York: New York
University Press.
Rocque, M. (2012). Exploring school rampage shootings: Research, theory, and policy. The
Social Science Journal, 49(3), 304-313. DOI: 10.1016/j.soscij.2011.11.001
Romer, D. Jamieson, P., & Jamieson, K. H. (2006). Are news reports of suicide contagious? A
stringent test in six US cities. Journal of Communication, 56(2), 253-270.
64
DOI: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00018.x
Romer, D., & Jamieson, P. (2003). Introduction to special issue on youth suicide. American
Behavioral Scientist, 46(9), 1131-1136. DOI: 10.1177/0002764202250655
Russell, G. W. (1974). Machiavellianism, locus of control, aggression, performance and
precautionary
obert r in ice hockey. Human Relations, 27(9), 825-837. DOI:
10.1177/001872677402700901
Sandler, I., Schoenfelder, E., Wolchik, S., & MacKinnon, D. (2011). Long-term impact of
prevention programs to promote effective parenting: Lasting effects but uncertain processes.
Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 299-329. DOI: 10.1146/annurev.psych.121208.131619
Schlessinger, R. (2013, December 31). The 2014 U.S. and world populations. U.S. News &
World Report. Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/ obertschlesinger/2013/12/31/us-population-2014-317-million-and-71-billion-in-the-world
Schubert, C. A., & Mulvey, E. P. (2014). Behavioral health problems, treatment, and outcomes
in serious youthful offenders. Juvenile Justice Bulletin, available at:
http://www.ojjdp.gov/publications/pubresults.asp.
Sharkey, P., & Sampson, R. J. (2010). Destination effects: Residential mobility and trajectories
of adolescent violence in a stratified metropolis. Criminology, 48(3), 639-682.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-9125.2010.00198.x
Slater, M. D., Henry, K. L., Swaim, R. C., & Anderson, L. L. (2003). Violent media content and
aggressiveness in adolescents: A downward spiral model. Communication Research, 30(6),
713736. DOI: 10.1177/0093650203258281
Smith-Khuri, E., Iacha, R., Scheidt, P. C., Overpeck, M. D., Gabhainn, S. N., Pickett, W., &
Harel, Y. (2004) A cross-national study of violence-related behaviors in adolescents.
65
Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, 158, 539-544.

DOI: 10.1001/archpedi.158.6.539
Snyder, H. N. (2011). Arrests in the United States, 1980 - 2009. Patterns & trends. NCJ 234319.
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice,
Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/aus8009.pdf
Stoddard, S. A., Whiteside, L., Zimmerman, M. A., Cunningham, R. M., Chermack, S. T., &
Walton, M. A. (2013). The relationship between cumulative risk and promotive
factors and violence behavior among urban adolescents. American Journal of
Community Psychology, 51(1-2), 57-65. DOI: 10.1007/s10464-012-9541-7
Subra, B., Muller, D., Bgue, L., Bushman, B. J., & Delmas, F. (2010). Automatic effects of
alcohol and weapon cues on aggressive thoughts and behaviors. Personality and
Social Psychology Bulletin, 36(8), 1052-1057. DOI: 10.1177/0146167210374725
Tepin, L. A., Jakubowski, J. A., Abram, K. M., Olson, N. D., Stokes, M. L., & Welty, L. J.
(2014). Firearm homicide and other causes of death in delinquents: A 16-year
prospective study. Pediatrics, 134(1). DOI: 10.1542/peds.2013-3966.
Thomaes, S., Bushman, B. J., Stegge, H., & Olthof, T. (2008). Trumping shame by blasts of
noise: Narcissism, self-esteem, shame, and aggression in young adolescents. Child
Development, 79(6), 1792-1801. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01226.x
Tolan, P. H., Gorman-Smith, D., & Henry, D. B. (2003). The developmental ecology of
urban males youth violence. Developmental Psychology, 39(2), 274-291. DOI:
10.1037/0012-1649.39.2.274.
Twenge, J. M., & Campbell, W. K. (2003). Isnt it fun to get the respect that were going to
deserve? Narcissism, social rejection, and aggression. Personality and Social
66
Psychology Bulletin, 29 (2), 261-272. DOI: 10.1177/0146167202239051

Twenge, J. M., Konrath, S., Foster, J. D., Campbell, W. K., & Bushman, B. J. (2008). Egos
inflating over time: A cross-temporal meta-analysis of the Narcissistic Personality
Inventory. Journal of Personality, 76(4), 875-901. DOI: 10.1111/j.14676494.2008.00507.x
Valkenburg, P. M., Krcmar, M., Peeters, A. L., & Marseille, N. M. (1999). Developing
a scale to assess three styles of
television mediation: Instructive mediation, restrictive mediation, and social cov
iewing. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 43(1), 52-66. DOI:
10.1080/08838159909364474
van Baardewijk, Y., Stegge, H., Bushman, B. J., & Vermeiren, R. (2009). Psychopathic
traits, victim distress and aggression in children. Journal of Child Psychology and
Psychiatry, 50(6), 718-725. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2008.02023.x
van Geel, M., Vedder, P., & Tanilon, J. (2014). Bullying and weapon carrying: A metaanalysis. JAMA Pediatrics, 168(8), 714-720. Doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2014.213
van Horn, P., & Lieberman, A. F. (2012). Early exposure to trauma: Domestic and community
violence. In L. C. Mayes, & M. Lewis (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of environment
in human development (pp. 466-479). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Veenema, A. H. (2009). Early life stress, the development of aggression and neuroendocrine and
neurobiological correlates: What can we learn from animal models? Frontiers in
Neuroendocrinology, 30(4), 497-518. DOI: 10.1016/j.yfrne.2009.03.003
VonDorn, R., Volavka, & Johnson, N. (2012). Mental disorder and violence: Is there a
relation beyond substance abuse? Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology,
67
47(3), 487-503. DOI: 10.1007/s00127-011-0356-x

Vossekull B., Fein, R. A., Reddy, M., Borum, R., & Modzeleski, W. (2002). The final report and
findings of the safe school initiative: Implications for the prevention of school attacks in
the United States. Washington, DC: U. S. Secret Service and Department of Education.
Webster, D. W, Freed, L. H., Frattaroli, S., & Wilson, M. H. (2002). How delinquent youth
acquire guns: Initial versus most recent gun acquisitions. Journal of Urban Health, 79,
60-69.
Webster, D. W., & Vernick, J. S. (Eds.) (2013). Reducing gun violence in America: Informing
policy with evidence and analysis. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Webster, D. W., Vernick, J. S., & Bulzacchelli, M. T. (2009). Effects of state-level firearm seller
accountability policies on firearms trafficking. Journal of Urban Health, 86, 525-537.
Webster-Stratton, C., & Taylor, T. (2001). Nipping early risk factors in the bud: preventing
substance abuse, delinquency, and violence in adolescence through interventions targeted
at young children (08 years). Prevention Science, 2(3), 165192.
DOI:10.1023/A:1011510923900
Wellford, C. F., Pepper, J. V., & Petrie, C. V. (Eds.) (2013). Firearms and violence: A critical
review. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Welsh, B. C., Lipsey, M. W., Rivara, F. P., Hawkins, J. D., Aos, S., & Hollis-Peel, M. E. (2012).
Promoting change, changing lives: Effective prevention and intervention to reduce
serious offending (pp. 245-277). In R. Loeber & D. P. Farrington (Eds.), From juvenile
delinquency to adult crime: Criminal careers, justice policy, and prevention. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Williamson, S., Hare, R. D., & Wong, S. (1987). Violence: Criminal psychopaths and their
68
victims. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 19(4), 454462.

DOI:10.1037/h0080003
Wills, T. A., Sargent, J. D., Gibbons, F. X., Gerrard, M., & Stoolmiller, M. (2009). Movie
exposure to alcohol cues and adolescent alcohol problems: a longitudinal analysis in a
national sample. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 23(1). 23-25. DOI:
10.1037/a0014137
Wyman, P. A., Brown, H., LoMurray, M., Schmeelk-Cone, K., Petrova, M., Yu, Q., Walsh, E.,
Tu, X., & Wang, W. (2010). An outcome evaluation of the Sources of Strength suicide
prevention program delivered by adolescent peer leaders in high schools. American
Journal of Public Health, 100(9), 1653-1661. DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2009.190025
Xu, J-M., Jun, K.S., & Zhu, X., & Bellmore, A. (2012a). Learning from bullying traces in social
media. NAACL- HLT. Retrieved from
http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/2390000/2382139/p656xu.pdf?ip=75.187.104.151&id=2382139&acc=OPEN&key=4D4702B0C3E38B35.4D47
02B0C3E38B35.4D4702B0C3E38B35.6D218144511F3437&CFID=390933532&CFTO
KEN=84760703&__acm__=1405779294_ee8f71ff5131b0c8be7511ab34b0e339
69
Table 1. Some major differences between street shootings and school shootings.
Street Shootings
Less rare
Concentrated in inner cities.
Non-white offenders overrepresented.
Guns usually obtained from illegal gun
market.
Preferred weapon is a handgun
Many recidivist violent offenders.
History of discipline problems common.
Co-offending typical.
Prior criminal victimization common.
Suicide combined with homicide
uncommon.
Victims mostly of same race and sex (often
African American males).
Victimization of family members highly
unusual.
Mostly from low income families.
Substance use common.
Treatment and symptoms of mental illness
uncommon.
Generally below average in intellectual
functioning and academic achievement.
Generally personally know someone who
has killed or been killed before.
Avoid media attention for shootings
because they dont want to be caught and
prosecuted.
School Shootings
Extremely rare.
Concentrated in rural areas and towns.
Mostly white offenders.
Guns often obtained from family members
who purchased them legally.
Often multiple guns used, including semiautomatic rifles with high capacity
magazines.
Uncommon recidivist violent offenders.
History of discipline problems uncommon.
Solo offending typical.
Prior criminal victimization uncommon.
Suicide and homicide very common.
White victims predominate (male and
female).
Victimization of family members can occur
prior to the school shooting.
Mostly from stable, middle class families.
Substance use uncommon.
Treatment of mental illness uncommon,
but symptoms of mental illness common.
Generally above average in intellectual
functioning and academic achievement.
Generally do not personally know anyone
who has killed before.
Seek media attention for shootings.

Youth Violence NSF PDF

Caricato da

Informazioni sul documento

Descrizione originale:

Titolo originale

Copyright

Formati disponibili

Condividi questo documento

Condividi o incorpora il documento

Opzioni di condivisione

Hai trovato utile questo documento?

Questo contenuto è inappropriato?

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

Youth Violence NSF PDF

Caricato da

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Youth Violence: What We Know and What We Need to Know

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Johns Hopkins University

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Youth Violence: What We Know and What We Need to Know

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Preventing rampage shootings in schools and communities. Programs and strategies to

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

ratings can be like a magnet to attract children to objectionable media content.

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Medical Association: Psychiatry, 70(6), 565-566. DOI:

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Journal of Research in Personality, 36(6), 543-545. DOI: 10.1016/S00926566(02)00502-0

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

1907-1927. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01233.x

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE

Running head: YOUTH VIOLENCE