Investigating Root Causes of School Violence: A Case Control Study of School Violent Offenders, Non-School Youth Violence Offenders, and Non-Offending Youths

Objectives of this study are to identify “the potential root causes and related factors that contribute to school violence” and use their findings to devise strategies and programs to promote student and school safety. This is follow-up on a previously funded NIJ school safety study to develop the School Shooting Database (SSDB). The applicants argue that current data has found predictors of school violence, but without comparison groups, research is unable to isolate unique predictors of school shooters. This project seeks to enhance data collection efforts from the previous study by adding additional data that will provide comparison groups for school shooting data as well as school shootings from 2016 to 2020. They propose a case control methodology to compare a sample of adolescent school shooters (cases) to samples of two key comparison groups; 250 non-school youth violent offenders, and 250 non-offending youths who attended the same school as the school shooter (controls) in the U.S. between 1990 and 2020 (n= 750). They will run multivariate logistic and multinomial models to answer the research questions. Note: This project contains a research and/or development component, as defined in applicable law, and complies with Part 200 Uniform Requirements - 2 CFR 200.210(a)(14). CA/NCF