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40 American J. Crim. Just. 1 (2015)

handle is hein.journals/acnjrlocm40 and id is 1 raw text is: Am J Crim Just (2015) 40:1-22 DOI 10.1007/s12103-014-9239-5 A Comparative Analysis of Attempted and Completed School-Based Mass Murder Attacks Laura E. Agnich Received: 12 October 2013 /Accepted: 3 February 2014 / Published online: 13 February 2014 © Southern Criminal Justice Association 2014 Abstract School shootings are rarely studied quantitatively due to the fact that they are relatively rare, albeit powerful events. Therefore, prior research on school shoot- ings typically relies on case study methodologies, or involves the use of typologies based on perpetrators' motivations, their relationships to victims, and/or the total number of victims killed. However, not all cases of multiple-victim homicide attacks that take place in schools involve the use of firearms, and not all school-based multiple- victim homicide attacks result in multiple fatalities, as many such cases are either thwarted in advance by police or fail to result in the intended number of victims due to a variety of factors. The present study compares attempted and completed mass murder and rampage style attacks that have taken place at schools, and further compares incidents involving firearms to those that involve other deadly weapons. Utilizing a database of 282 identified cases of mass murder incidents in schools across 38 nations, incidents' date and location, the demographic characteristics of perpetrators, weapons used, number of victims, and school contexts are examined and compared. Keywords School shootings - School violence . Mass murder - Comparative - Rampage shootings Recent decades have seen an unprecedented trend worldwide, a sharp rise in multiple- victim homicides taking place at schools, mostly in developed, Western nations (see Agnich, 2010; B6ckler, Seeger, Sitzer, & Heitmeyer, 2013). Commonly referred to as school shootings, these events elicit the fear of students, parents, teachers, and school administrators (Elliott, Hamburg, & Williams, 1998; Fox, 1996; Muschert, 2007), and these fears have risen over the past several years (Addington, 2003, Altheide, 2009). Random events such as the December 14, 2012 murder of 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut undermine the goal of education and disrupt the teaching/learning process for students everywhere who fear that their L. E. Agnich (E) Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Georgia Southern University, P.O. Box 8105, Statesboro, GA 30460-8105, USA e-mail: lagnich@georgiasouthern.edu 4L Springer