From CNN Opinion, March 28, 2023 by Jillian Peterson, Ph.D. and James Densley, Ph.D., are co-founders and co-presidents of The Violence Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research center. They are the authors of the award-winning book, “The Violence Project: How to stop a mass shooting epidemic.” The views expressed in this commentary are the authors’ own. View more opinion on CNN.
Since 1996, we have studied the life histories of nearly 200 mass shooters, initially with funding from the National Institute of Justice, to understand their behaviors and find ways to stop them. We have interviewed perpetrators and people who knew them – including their parents – and have found that mass shooters generally, and school shooters particularly, follow a similar pathway to violence.
In our research, we’ve encountered three types of parents of mass shooters. The most common type create chaos and trauma with their parenting. These parents have often experienced trauma themselves. They may have suffered from domestic violence, addiction or mental illness, or they may have been victims of childhood abuse or neglect in the past.
Today, they may be emotionally distant or overwhelmed by their own problems, prone to outbursts of anger or neglectful of their children’s needs. As a result, they struggle to provide a stable environment for their children. Children who grow up in these environments may suffer from early childhood trauma, which can lead to a host of psychological and behavioral problems later in life, including violence if not addressed. These parents need support and services, not criminal prosecution. Universal trauma screening and school-based mental health may help identify the children living in these families who need early intervention.
The second type is parents who sense that something is wrong with their child but don’t know what to do or who to turn to for help. Several of the mothers of perpetrators we’ve interviewed fall into this category.
They may downplay problems or ignore warning signs because they fear a punitive, police-led intervention will only make things worse. This is why we have to be careful of the slippery slope of criminally charging parents in these cases – we want to encourage parents who are concerned about their child to seek the necessary help without hesitating for fear of legal repercussions. There are parents who do more than just not asking for help. They were allegedly told something was very wrong with their child but chose to ignore or dismiss warning signs while enabling and accelerating future violence by offering easy access to a gun. They did so even though they were aware that their child had a history of violent behavior or disqualifying mental illness.It’s important to note that not all parents of mass shooters fit neatly into these three categories, and not all mass shooters come from dysfunctional families. However, understanding the role that parents can play in shaping their children’s behavior and mental health is an important step in preventing future tragedies.
In our research on school mass shooters, 85% showed similar warning signs of a crisis and 92% were suicidal. Further, 93% of school mass shooters communicated violent intent ahead of time and 86% showed a high degree of planning before the shooting. Lastly, 73% of all school mass shooters had a history of childhood trauma.
Comments (1)