This study presents a social network analysis of the pre-incident social and behavioral environment surrounding the perpetrator of the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas (MSD) High School in Parkland, Florida. Social network analysis is a valuable tool for visualizing and understanding social ties and relations among entities and has been applied across social science disciplines to study deviant and legitimate social groups. We developed an ego network for the MSD perpetrator to understand who comprised his social network and the warning signs these network members both observed and reported. Results indicate that nearly all network members observed at least one type of concerning behavior, but only about half reported them to authorities. Gun-related behaviors and physical aggression and violence were predominantly observed. The network itself was sparse and had little cohesion, and influential actors within the network may have restricted the flow of information rather than facilitated its sharing. These findings suggest several directions for future research aimed at preventative policy, including development of centralized reporting systems, specialized awareness training for families, students, and teachers, and continued exploration of the egocentric social networks of mass public shooters and plotters to uncover the attributes of successfully prevented cases.
(Publisher abstract provided.)
Downloads
Similar Publications
- Gene—Environment Interplay and Delinquent Involvement: Evidence of Direct, Indirect, and Interactive Effects
- Understanding variation in juvenile life without parole legislation following Miller
- Look Twice as Much as You Say: Scene Graph Contrastive Learning for Self-Supervised Image Caption Generation