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Creation of School Shooting Open-Source Database Fuels Understanding

NCJ Number
304070
Date Published
February 2022
Annotation

To better understand the root causes of school shootings and identify possible intervention points, National Institute of Justice-funded researchers examined two theories of criminology in the context of various types of school shootings, the life-course theory and the situational crime prevention theory.

Abstract

To better understand the root causes of school shootings and identify possible intervention points, National Institute of Justice-funded researchers examined two theories of criminology in the context of various types of school shootings, the life-course theory and the situational crime prevention theory. These two criminological theories have not been examined extensively in the context of school shootings because of the lack of a large, concentrated dataset focused on these incidents. Therefore, the researchers built The American School Shooting Study to fill the gap – a groundbreaking, national open-source database of all known shootings that resulted in at least one injury on K-12 school grounds between 1990 and 2016. The authors suggested that a one-size-fits-all approach may not work to prevent school shootings. Many that happen to occur on school grounds are simply a manifestation of larger problems on the community level, researchers suggest. These might be best addressed by community partnerships to address larger issues such as gang involvement, drugs, or domestic violence.

Date Published: February 1, 2022