NCJ Number
191757
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 29 Issue: 5 Dated: September/October 2001 Pages: 429-443
Date Published
2001
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This study examined the extent to which the Columbine High School shooting that occurred on April 20, 1999, in Littleton, Colorado, impacted the perceived safety of female university students in upstate New York.
Abstract
The data for this study were collected for another purpose, but reflect points in time before and after the shooting at Columbine (n=122). At the time of the shooting, several researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) were in the process of administering a survey designed to examine abuse of women in male-female dating relationships. The survey was randomly distributed to RIT classes between April 15, 1999, and May 5, 1999. The timing of the shooting and the random nature of the class assignments provided the researchers with a naturally occurring, separate-sample, pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design that allowed for the testing of the supposition that there is a connection, via the media, between the shooting in Littleton, Col., and the perceptions of safety among female RIT students in Rochester, New York. Both bivariate and multivariate statistical analyses confirmed the hypothesis, that, on average, respondents in the reference group (those students surveyed prior to the shooting) felt considerably safer than respondents in the experimental group (those students surveyed after the shooting). These results, although limited by practical constraints, provide additional support for the view that a media effect exists for sensationalized nonlocal crimes. Notably, the findings also suggest that the media portrayal of Columbine impacted students' perceptions of safety more than their own past victimization experiences. 4 tables, 1 figure, and 24 references