9.2 Continuing and Emerging Crime and Victimization Topics
9.2 Continuing and Emerging Crime and Victimization Topics
Although there may not be a consensus on the cause(s) of crime, one thing is certain: crime is not going away. Understanding root causes, risk factors, and more can help us mitigate risk, prevent or treat crime, and make our communities safer. All of what we discussed in Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 is still true! Going forward, the field of criminology will and should continue to study everything from property crime to violent crime. Here, we will discuss a few topics that are either newly emerging, highly impactful, or particularly intriguing to the public or researchers:
- mass murder
- crime and media
- gender-based violence
- cybercrime
Mass Murder
While other countries definitely experience their own types of tragedies, the United States has become known for certain types of horror-filled events where one or a few individuals take the lives of many. A mass killing or mass murder is federally defined as a single incident in which three or more people are killed in a public place (Investigative Assistance, 2013). The types of mass murder vary by the weapon used (such as a firearms, knives, explosives, vehicles, or even airplanes), by the perpetrator (such as a lone wolf, members of a cult, or religious extremists), by the amount of time between killings (meaning all in one event or across multiple locations), and by the motive (such as hate/bigotry, mental illness, religious extremism, or politics). What does not vary is that each type of mass murder includes the killing of at least three people by at least one perpetrator. With so many factors involved, there is a lot of variety in mass murders, despite them being some of the least common crimes committed.
Many contemporary mass murder single events are also termed mass shootings because of the use of firearms to kill or injure the greatest number of people in the shortest amount of time. These killings happen in the same location, such as at a school, workplace, public location, or event – and at the same time. School shootings, in which students arrive heavily armed and ready to kill their classmates and teachers, have gone from being extremely rare to becoming frighteningly common (figure 9.2). The incident most often referenced as the start of this horrible trend is the massacre at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. Two high school seniors from the school, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered 12 students and one teacher and injured another 21 people. They then killed themselves in the school library. At the time, Columbine was the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, and even though it was not the first school shooting in the United States, it changed how we viewed safety in schools. Schools now routinely practice lockdowns and have active shooter drills. Students and teachers alike are all very aware of the possibility of a school shooting on their campus.
Understanding the reasons, motives, and causes of different typ