The systematic review by Sommer, Leuschner, and Scheithauer ("International Journal of Developmental Science" v8, n1-2, p3-24, 2014) includes 126 school shooting cases from 13 countries. This comprehensive review provides a valuable synthesis of a topic largely discussed in school shooting research: The role of bullying and peer…

A plethora of studies have appeared which argue that, prior to their attack, the perpetrators of school shootings had experienced intense conflicts and problematic relations (e.g. bullying) with peers and teachers, and were on the periphery of the schools' social life. This in turn resulted in the perpetrators' view of themselves as marginalized…

Background: There are only a few recent studies on secular trends in child and adolescent suicides. We examine here trends in rates and methods of suicide among young people in Finland, where suicide rates at these ages are among the highest in the world. Methods: The data, obtained from Statistics Finland, consisted of all suicides (n = 901)…

Two case examples of school shootings in Finland illustrate the interplay between the distal, international influence of the Columbine shooting and the more immediate impact of local peer interactions involving both peer bullying at school and peer encouragement of violence through the Internet. Both cases involved emotionally troubled young men…

Dinkes, Cataldi, and Lin-Kelly (2007) claims that 78% of public schools reported one or more violent incidents during the 2005/2006 school year. School shootings are a rare but real threat on school campuses. Shootings at private schools are even less frequent with only a few recorded examples in the United States. This case study examines how a…

Objective: This study searched for gender differences in filicidal offense characteristics and associated variables. Methods: In this binational register-based study all filicide perpetrators (75 mothers and 45 fathers) and their crimes in Austria and Finland 1995-2005 were examined for putative gender differences. The assessed variables were…