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

• NCJ Number: 252216
• Journal: Homicide Studies Volume: 23 Issue: 1 Dated: 2018 Pages: 64-84
• Date Published: October 2018
• Author(s): James Silver; John Horgan; Paul Gill
• Length: 10 pages
• DOI: 10.1177/1088767918802881
• Grant Number(s): 2013-ZA-BX-0002
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)

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 offenders lone-actor terrorists to 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 theory grievance is made explicit. (Publisher abstract modified)