Peer Reviewed Articles

The tragic shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007, and Northern Illinois University in 2008, marked a significant turning point in campus violence risk awareness. Campus shootings had occurred before, even prior to the 1966 University of Texas tower shootings. Prevention efforts began to appear in the late 1980s and continued to be established.

A case study of a 44-year-old woman who committed a mass murder is presented. Following a chronic course of psychotic deterioration, and a likely diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia that remained untreated, she returned to her workplace after 3 years from her termination and killed seven people and herself. Her history is reconstructed through investigation of primary and secondary source materials.

Envy is an emotion capable of producing distorted perceptions and cognitions. Intense envy is associated with adverse states such as shame, depression, inferiority, isolation, anxiety, paranoia, and even violent criminal behavior. The false logic of envy asserts that one has an unfavorable disadvantage, while obscuring the relative nature of advantage, so that the other appears enhanced while one feels diminished.

This study describes the development of the WAVR-21, a structured professional judgment guide for the assessment of workplace targeted violence, and presents initial interrater reliability results. The 21-item instrument codes both static and dynamic risk factors and change, if any, over time. Five critical items or red flag indicators assess violent motives, ideation, intent, weapons skill, and pre-attack planning.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has a lengthy history in criminal forensic mental health but is rarely discussed in the contemporary threat assessment literature as a cause of or contributor to targeted violence. In the popular media, ASD is sometimes associated with incidents of mass murder, influencing public impressions, but begging the question of what relationship ASD may genuinely have with violence potential.

A case study is presented of a 22-year-old student mass murderer who stabbed or shot to death 6 college students and wounded 14 others. Because he left a lengthy autobiographical “manifesto” and social media posts, and an extensive law enforcement investigation ensued, a significant amount of information exists to examine the case.

In the 1980s, a series of shootings by disgruntled US postal workers and other employees focused media attention on acts of violence in the workplace. Over the past 3 decades, researchers have shed light onto the types of violence that occur in the workplace, the characteristics of individuals who engage in workplace violence, and the contextual factors that may escalate or mitigate the risk of violence.