U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

Shared Struggles? Cumulative Strain Theory and Public Mass Murders From 1990 to 2014

NCJ Number
252216
Date Published
October 2018
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This study responded to scholars' urging that research on mass murder shift from the creation of typologies to theoretically rich, data-driven comparative examinations of the phenomenon.
Abstract
This study redressed such calls in two ways. First, it analyzed a unique sample of public mass murderers with the multistage explanatory model of cumulative strain theory. Second, it used a comparison group of similarly violent offenderslone-actor terroriststo provide context to the study findings. The results demonstrate that cumulative strain theory usefully describes the trajectory toward violence by public mass murderers, more so when a concept implicit in the theorygrievanceis made explicit. (Publisher abstract modified)

Date Published: October 1, 2018