Research, findings, and essays
Center executive director Jillian Peterson and deputy director James Densley are the authors of The Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic, winner of the Minnesota Book Award for General Nonfiction. The book examines mass shootings in America and issues an urgent call to action to stop these tragedies using first-person accounts from perpetrators, survivors, and families.
In addition, they have been widely published in peer-reviewed publications, essays, and op-eds.
Peer-reviewed articles
- Deviant Behavior, online publication ahead of print (2024):
Exploring the overlap: Suicidal thoughts and homicidal acts among incarcerated offenders - Annual Review of Clinical Psychology (January 29, 2024):
Epidemiology of Mass Shootings in the United States - Homicide Studies (in preparation):
The nature of homicides on college campuses 2000-2023 - Nature (in preparation):
Direct exposure to mass shootings among a nationally representative sample of Americans - Social Media + Society (February 2023):
How Mass Public Shooters Use Social Media: Exploring Themes and Future Directions - Psychology, Public Policy, and Law (2022):
Psychosis and mass shootings: A systematic examination using publicly available data - JAMA Network Open (November 4, 2021):
Communication of Intent to Do Harm Preceding Mass Public Shootings in the United States, 1966 to 2019 - JAMA Network Open (February 16, 2021):
Presence of Armed School Officials and Fatal and Nonfatal Gunshot Injuries During Mass School Shootings, United States, 1980-2019 - The Police Journal (July 30, 2019):
Evaluation of ‘the R-Model’ crisis intervention de-escalation training for law enforcement - Journal of Crime and Justice (May 24, 2018):
Is Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training evidence-based practice? A systematic review - Journal of Interpersonal Violence (July 11, 2016):
Developing an Understanding of Victims and Violent Offenders: The Impact of Fostering Empathy - Mitchell Hamline Law Review (January 1, 2016):
Understanding Offenders with Serious Mental Illness in the Criminal Justice System - Clinical Psychological Science (April 24, 2015):
Psychosis Uncommonly and Inconsistently Precedes Violence Among High-Risk Individuals
Recent essays and op-eds
Los Angeles Times (December 17, 2024): Here’s what’s so unusual about the Wisconsin shooting – and what isn’t
CNN (March 28, 2023): Opinion: Crumbley parents lose their appeal. Why that could be a game changer on school shootings
The Conversation (February 14, 2023) Michigan State murders: What we know about campus shootings and the gunmen who carry them out
The Conversation (February 9, 2023): Five years after Parkland, school shootings haven’t stopped, and kill more people
NY Times (January 26, 2023): Opinion: We profiled the ‘signs of crisis’ in 50 years of mass shootings. This Is what we found.
LA Times (January 25, 2023): Op-Ed: Older mass shooters are rare. Here’s how they differ from young assailants
The Conversation (January 24, 2023): Typical mass shooters are in their 20s and 30s – suspects in California’s latest killings are far from that average
