Assignment 5 Final RESEARCH PROPOSAL PDF

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Alternative assignment which is a research proposal for assignment 5. It is a 20 page paper that encompasses everything learned in the course....

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Mass Shooters In America: The Normalization of Tragedy Kevin S. Rivera University of Nevada Las Vegas CRJ 301 Professor Rorie 12/05/2017

Introduction

MASS SHOOTERS IN AMERICA 1 Mass shootings have become a part of life in today’s world, they are now more common than ever. With 307 mass shootings happening as of November 5, 2017, this tragedy has become normalized to the point where they’re happening on a weekly basis (Gun Violence Archive, 2017). While there is no legal definition of what constitutes a mass shooting, the leading definition is, "a multiple homicide incident in which four or more victims are murdered with firearms, within one event, and in one or more locations in close proximity." (Congressional Research Service, 2015). With the largest mass shooting in United States history happening in Las Vegas, and not even month later another shooting happening at a Texas church, mass shootings are a serious problem that need to be studied and thoroughly analyzed to save lives. There is plenty of talk of gun reform, policy changes, and medical background checks to help alleviate the problem. With so many mass shootings happening in the past years, no significant progress has been made to tackle the problem, while it is a relatively new phenomenon compared to other crimes, more attention needs to be dedicated to prevent future mass shootings. Research in this field is relatively new and ample but more research should be expanded at the root of the problem. The root is trying to prevent individuals from performing these heinous acts. There has been focus on the perpetrators of mass shootings but isn’t much useful because the research is done after many innocent lives have been taken. The shooters who have survived are either in: in prison or a mental health facility, usually unable/restricted to talk to anybody. Social process theory tells us all individuals have ability to become criminals regardless of class, ethnicity, or gender (Siegel, 2000). Stephen Paddock is a prime example of this, he was a retired accountant who turned into a millionaire poker player. (Vives, Ryan & Serna, 2017). What led Paddock to commit the deadliest mass shooting in American history? His

MASS SHOOTERS IN AMERICA 2 motive is still unknown. Interviewing mass shooters and finding out what could've stopped them would be beneficial to the criminal justice research world, but research in that field hasn’t given us the best results as there’s no research that’s been focused on it. The key is to try and prevent anything from ever happening; intercepting the problem at the root. Being able to prevent these type of tragedies would save thousands of lives. Imagine getting inside the mind of Adam Lanza, Omar Mateen, Seung-Hui Cho, or Devin Kelley before they committed the murders. Even though information gained from these shooters after the heinous acts has provided us beneficial research, there needs to be more research done at a lower generalizable level. All the worst mass shooters in history have either committed suicide or have been shot dead. Most mass shooters fit a profile but so do other people who aren’t killers. Many generalizations can be made about these people, but these same generalizations can be made about everyday society. Previous Research What we currently know about mass shooters is that the majority are young white men with acute mental issues (Mother Jones, 2017). But as seen with the deadliest mass shooting in history, Stephen Paddock doesn’t exactly fit that stereotype. With this field of research being relatively new and always continuously evolving (there’s been four more shootings since the Las Vegas tragedy) there isn’t enough concrete knowledge to figure out how to prevent further deaths (Follman Aronsen, & Pan, 2017). Past research topics on mass shootings have only given us a glimpse of the typologies that are associated with mass shooters. A research study conducted by Thomas G. Bowers, Eric S. Holmes, and Ashley Rhom, The Nature of Mass Murder and Autogenic Massacre, tells us that mass murders (not shootings) need to be studied further to gain a better understanding of the stressors that push people to commit murder (2010). Researching mass murder is of limited interest due to their high clearance rate but its of specific importance to

MASS SHOOTERS IN AMERICA 3 behavioral sciences and mental health services who can actually help prevent these killings from ever taking place (Bowers, Holmes, & Rhom, 2010). Stressors, traits, and antecedents need to be studied to get a basic understanding of the deeper motives that can be prevented in these highly publicized tragedies. The strengths of this study is that it gives us a deep conceptualization of what a mass murder is and a general pattern of whom mass murders tend to be, their general motives, and their firearm of choice. The weakness is in knowledge of these murders before the fact. Not much information is known until it is too late. This weakness tends to follow of lot of this research. All of the research in this field is found out after the death and violence have occurred. In a study by Christopher J. Ferguson, Mark Coulson, and Jane Barnett, the psychological profiles of student shooters were assessed and analyzed to set these students apart from others similarly aged students. What was found out about this study was that young school shooters resembled more the profiles of older mass shooters than differing from similarly aged classmates (2011). There was also a link to try and connect violent video games to violent tendencies that subconsciously affected young teens and created bad public policy, even though no correlation was found between the two. The study found that failure of investigating mass school shooters after the attack is failure to the mental health services that are supposed to be helping these troubled students. “Combination of anti-social traits, resentment, and despondency” seem to be the leading motive for school shooters. (Ferguson, Coulson, and Barnett, 2011). These motives don’t help dig into the real problem of prevention instead of intervention. Family background and social cues in these scenarios seem to be of no effort to help predict when incidents like this are to occur. The authors provided a solution that has yet to be tested for their research. In order to help prevent these future rampages, early warning signs in young students should be

MASS SHOOTERS IN AMERICA 4 addressed. It’s a good start for targeting the student population but fails to address the rest of the population in the country that aren’t students. Workplace shootings, shootings in large public places, or even shootings in places of worship, how are these incidents prevented? The weakness of this study was of no fault of its own. It cannot be generalized for the larger population to compare the traits of older mass shooters to young students in a school setting. Another study that focused on mass killings was, The Autogenic (Self-Generated) Massacre done by Dr. Paul Mullen. Dr. Mullen found that based on intensive research of five mass killers from Australia, they all five shared several common traits (2004). All individuals were males, under 40 years old, socially isolated, unemployed, and had a history of being bullied as younger students, along with a fascination of weapons. They also all shared traits in grandiosity and obsession. Marked by a childhood of rejection and slow vengeance towards people that have done them wrong (2004). Mullen helped us operationalize the traits that turn people into becoming threats to society. Mullen explains that all these traits are leading towards delusional beliefs that are filled with a personal agenda to kill individuals who have wronged the perpetrators. The autogenic massacre is, as Dr. Mullen describes it, essentially a murder suicide, in which the perpetrators intend to kill as many people as they can and then kill themselves. This was seen in Columbine, the Virginia Tech massacre, and more recently the Las Vegas Route 91 tragedy. There’s countless more examples of these autogenic (self-generated) massacres happening. Dr. Mullen argues that more focus on mental health services should be addressed in order to properly get a gauge of how individuals are growing up to do these mass murders. Numerous perspectives are focusing on gun reform and controlling how the media reports these extensively, which have had studies of their own which show the media enabling future offenders (Johnston & Joy, 2017). First and foremost, mental health is the first step to discussing this

MASS SHOOTERS IN AMERICA 5 problem. Simply figuring out the characteristics of these murderers after they’ve killed is not going to help save enough lives. The solution is to figure out these characteristics before they get to the point of planning out mass shootings. That’s the catch-22. As complex as the problem is, the situation is equally hard to figure out without interviewing and analyzing young individuals who show the least bit similarities of these traits. However, it is a start. The last study that will be used for comparison is the fairly recent study focusing on Mass Shootings in America by Monica J. DeLateur and James Alan Fox. This study examines many of the myths and misconceptions associated with mass shootings. It points out the real world problems that sometimes can’t be stopped during a shooting spree, like the myth that mass shooters just “snap”, when the reality is that these attacks are meticulously planned (2013). This study also tells us the reality that mass shootings are common than you think if you use the definition of three or more homicide definition instead of four. What’s interesting about this study is the missed opportunities discussed that could lead to new information. As described by DeLateur and Fox, opportunities for researching mass murder in a systematic fashion have been set back by limited availability of data (mass shooters) that are willing to cooperate: Mass murderers are either dead, inaccessible due to legal reasons, or unwilling/unable to cooperate with research investigators (Bowers et al., 2010; Fox & Levin, 2003). DeLateur and Fox try to dispel myths associated with mass shooters and the misconceptions that surround them. The media is discussed as having an influence over victims and future perpetrators. The overnight infamy of the killers and their instant celebrity status is tempting for like minded individuals to outdo the original killer. “However, a few individuals instead identify with the power of the perpetrator, empathize with his or her frustrations, and maybe even admire his or her instant but undeserved celebrity.” (DeLateur and Fox, 2013). As many professionals in the criminal justice

MASS SHOOTERS IN AMERICA 6 field have stated, eliminating the mass shooting problem isn’t as easy as passing a new gun reform. There's a deeper underlying problem. One of the ways to solve the mass shooting problem involve drastic steps that the general public and elected officials are unwilling to take. The Australian example could be implemented: banning all guns in the country and providing incentive by doing a buyback program (Ozanne-Smith et al., 2004). Although a nice idea, that plan would never work in a country like the United States where there are anywhere from 270 million to 310 million guns in the country (Pew Research Center, 2013). Abolishing guns is unrealistic. Considerations For Future Research Other so called “solutions” to the mass shooting problem have been rounding up any individuals who show signs of mental illness. However, this “solution” can slowly turn into a witch hunt that gathers anyone who shows the slightest sign of a mental illness (DeLateur and Fox, 2013). Any attempts to single out potential “would-be shooters” before they do anything has the potential to do more harm than good. This happens by targeting innocent individuals and isolating them away from society instead of trying to work with them and provide mental services. It only goes to further marginalize an already damaged community. “If they already feel mistreated, then focused interventions, even if benevolent, can easily be misinterpreted as further evidence of persecution, thereby encouraging a violent outburst rather than discouraging it” (Fox & Levin, 1994, 2012; Lakeman, 1997). To many people it seems as though mass murder is the price we have to pay for living in a society where personal freedoms are highly valued, but that is just a myth. There are solutions but they begin by starting at the root of the problem. More research needs to be done in young children, particularly ages 11 and older. At this age most children develop their formal operational stage (Bibace & Walsh, 1980). During this

MASS SHOOTERS IN AMERICA 7 stage, children are able to use logic to solve problems, view the world around them, and plan for the future. Children have also developed a sense of self identity (1980). Previous studies have shown that most mass shooters are young, white, and suffer from a mental illness (Johnston & Joy, 2017). A majority of them share the same traits of anti-socialness. The media have only added to the fire to inspire copycat killers, trying to break the “death record” and become infamous (2017). Obtaining valuable information for troubled teens who could become the next mass shooter would be beneficial in preventing these incidents. Getting psychologists around the country to be available to help in schools would be the first step in helping younger individuals who may be at risk. In a perfect study, there would be a drastic reduction of the mass shootings that seem to happen every day if we were to have psychologists assess students across the country. The hypothesis that is to be tested goes as follows: Mental evaluations at a younger age are beneficial to lowering the risk factors that push people to commit mass shootings. The independent variable would be the mental evaluations at a young age by a psychologist, and the dependent variable would be the occurrence of mass shootings in the future by adolescents or adults. The unit of analysis would be the individuals who are children that are mentally evaluated through psychological interviews. The students would be tracked through time against other students who have had no association with psychologists; students who live a normal life with no discussion to any professional about their mental thoughts or processes. While mental health isn’t the key to the mass shooting problem it’s a start in the right direction to helping solve the bigger problem. Sampling

MASS SHOOTERS IN AMERICA 8 Due to stricter sampling characteristics and the need to be able to generalize for the larger population, probability sampling would be used. A regular probability sample although more expensive would help yield more generalizable results when compared to a nonprobability design. It would give us an accurate representation by removing investigator bias and helping determine the sampling error. Nonprobability sampling was an option but due to the generalizability that we need for this study, it wouldn’t be able to yield results that could be applied to other individual students that are focused in our target population. Another reason for not selecting it is due to the sampling frame, a variety of cases to choose from, and our study is focused more on being explanatory than exploratory. The only benefit that we saw from choosing a nonprobability study was that it would be easier to include students with a record of mental illness warning signs into an experimental group and evaluate them, but that is inappropriate in the long run and yet again, not generalizable to our target population. Starting out the sampling process, my population of interest would be students that are 11 and older but no older than 18 when the research begins. There are currently, according to National Center for Education Statistics, about 50.7 million students that are attending public elementary and secondary schools (NCES, 2017). These students are the target population for the research study. The sampling frame would consist of students from that original target population that are older than 11, all the way through their senior year of high school which typically ends at them being 17-18. I chose the age starting at 11 because children develop their sense of self identity at this time and they begin to grow socially and emotionally. They are also starting middle school, which is a huge transition from elementary school. I’m having the cut off age starting at graduation because there are too many variables to continue studying them after high school. A lot of them continue on to college or join

MASS SHOOTERS IN AMERICA 9 state are older than 11 but less the workforce, it is not feasible for our study to focus on an older age group when we are focused students that are aged 11. Students that are 11 and younger are not included in the research because it’s different from the target population. Children under 11 wouldn’t be suitable for the research and some of them wouldn’t be able to fully understand the measurement or the purpose of the research. The actual population that I would be focusing my research on would be the 11 year olds available under random selection (figure 1.1 shows how the sampling process works). It isn’t feasible to study millions, yet alone a hundred thousand kids that are 11 in school. The actual population for my study would focus on 1,000 kids in total. Out of the 1,000 kids, a true experimental design would be conducted separating half the kids into a control group and the other half into an experimental group. With random selection being the focus of probability sampling there would be no selection bias in our sample. Sampling Frame The sampling frame that would be utilized would be a list of all students that range from K-12 from 10 different states in the United States. I chose to make it 10 states to decrease sampling error. The more states we have in our sampling frame, the more representative of the population it becomes if cases are relatively similar to each other (Chambliss & Schutt, 2002). The 10 states would be randomly chosen through a multistage cluster sample. I chose this sampling method because a definite list of all students in the United States isn’t realistic, and a multistage cluster helps work around that. The natural occurrence of mixed students across the country would be beneficial to our cluster sample. Then from that sample, there would be another stage of clustering sampling to further generalize our sought out population. The multistage cluster will go from a randomly selected state to random city/town to random school, to 100 students being randomly assigned for our comparison groups. To start our cluster

MASS SHOOTERS IN AMERICA 10 sampling and get a more accurate sampling frame we would start with all 50 states and then randomly select states. After the 10 randomly selected states are found we would be able to get a list of students from selected schools in said states. To give an example of how it would be done: If the states chosen were California, Nevada, Florida, Texas, Illinois, New York, North Dakota, Washington, Tennessee, and Hawaii, an itemized list of all students from the school in state would be needed towards the end of our multistage cluster (see figure 1.2). From those 10 states, the current K-12 population according to the NCES for the 20142015 school year is: 6,312,161 (CA), 459,189 (NV), 2,756,944 (FL), 5,233,765 (TX), 2,050,239 (IL), 2,741,185 (NY), 106,586 (ND), 1,073,638 (WA), 995,475 (TN), 182,384 (HI). With a total of 21,729,182 students across those 10 states, the ages of these students would need to be weeded out to get a more accurate representation of students that are 11. To minimize the

(figure 1.2)

MASS SHOOTERS IN AMERICA 11 list, we would again have to sample between the cities or towns in that state, sample again to select a random school, and sample again to get an individual student. Before going to the student we would require an itemized list of the students at the school. The itemized list of all respe...