dc.contributor.author	Albright, Ryan Darrell
dc.coverage.spatial	Central and North America -- United States	en_US
dc.coverage.temporal	2000 - May 2014	en_US
dc.date.accessioned	2015-01-05T21:10:31Z
dc.date.available	2015-01-05T21:10:31Z
dc.date.issued	2014-12
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10428/1894
dc.description.abstract	The nature and distribution of school shootings and the variables that correlate to the actions of school shootings are presented in this study. Results of prior studies were gathered to represent an idea of what type of academic research had already been conducted. Many researchers sought out similar features in their reports which produced stereotypical offender characteristics. The findings of previous researchers were used as a comparison to findings of the current study, and were used as the rationale to further research the subject. The theoretical backing of routine activities theory allows the research to have a sound base to project offender actions and their consequences. The research questions underlying this study include: 1) are there typical offender/victim patterns of characteristics and do they overlap, 2) do environmental characteristics instigate and escalate school violence, and 3) do these types of events correlate to certain geographical areas? School shootings data were gathered from LexisNexis news reports and the website stoptheshootings.org. A total of 200 cases of school shootings were collected for the 14-year study period from May 2000 to May 2014. Offender and victim attributes along with their environmental and time-related factors were entered into SPSS files and analyzed by descriptive and bivariate statistics. Results shows that most offenders were males, aged 18 years or younger, whites, no gang affiliation or prior criminal records, and not mentally ill. Similarly, primary victims were males, whites, aged 18 years or younger, and had no known crime records. November accounted for about 25% or a quarter of the cases, Monday is more likely to occur than other days of a week; high schools had a higher percentage than do middle and elementary schools or colleges; and schools located in cities are also more likely to have incidents than those in rural or suburban areas. Bivariate analyses further discovered that random violence is more likely to occur in morning hours. To summarize, environmental and situational factors do play a role in determining the likelihoods of school violence, as well as certain individual characteristics such as age, race, and interpersonal conflicts.	en_US
dc.description.tableofcontents	I. INTRODUCTION - 1 Nature of the Problem - 2 II. LITERATURE REVIEW - 5 III. RESEARCH RATIONALE - 17 Routine Activities Theory - 18 IV. DATA and METHODS - 25 Research Questions - 29 V. ANALYSIS & RESULTS - 31 VI. DISCUSSION & IMPLICATIONS - 49 VII. CONCLUSION 59 REFERENCES - 62 APPENDIX A: Codebook for Variables - 75 APPENDIX B: Institutional Review Board Form - 81	en_US
dc.language.iso	en_US	en_US
dc.subject	school shooting	en_US
dc.subject	school violence	en_US
dc.subject	individual variables	en_US
dc.subject	environmental variables	en_US
dc.subject	Criminal Justice	en_US
dc.title	School Shooting and Individual and Contextual Correlates	en_US
dc.type	Thesis	en_US
dc.contributor.department	Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice	en_US
dc.description.advisor	Huang, Wilson
dc.description.advisor	Ross, Darrell
dc.description.advisor	Hand, Carl
dc.description.degree	M.S.	en_US
dc.description.major	Criminal Justice	en_US