U.S. flag

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

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Psychosis and mass shootings: A systematic examination using publicly available data

NCJ Number
307514
Journal
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law Volume: 28 Dated: 2022 Pages: 280-91
Author(s)
J. K. Peterson; J. A. Densley; K. Knapp; S. Higgins; A. Jensen
Date Published
2022
Length
12 pages
Annotation

This study examines what role psychosis plays in mass shootings and finds that while data indicate that access to mental health care may help prevent mass shootings in a minority of cases, this is far from the only solution to mass shootings.

Abstract

The findings of this study assessing the role of psychosis in mass shootings show that symptoms of psychosis played no role in 69% of cases, but psychosis may have played a minor role in 11% of cases, a moderate role in 9% of cases, and a major role in 11% of cases. Perpetrators motivated by psychosis were similar to mass shooters with other motivations in terms of demographics and common risk factors for violence. The role of serious mental illness in mass shootings is complex. The data indicate that access to mental health care may help prevent mass shootings in a minority of cases, but this is far from the only solution to mass shootings. Mass shootings are often blamed on serious mental illness. The role of psychosis is compared with other motivations for mass shootings including employment issues, interpersonal conflict, relationship issues, hate, and fame-seeking. Perpetrators motivated by psychosis are also compared with other perpetrators on several well-established risk factors for violence. It is hypothesized that a mental health history is common among mass shooters, but symptoms of psychosis only directly motivate mass shootings for a minority of cases. A dataset of 172 mass shooters was created, coded on 166 life history variables using publicly available data. The entire dataset and codebook are publicly available. (Published Abstract Provided)