Campus Killings: Uncovering the Complexities of this Crime

Campus Killings: Uncovering the Complexities of this Crime

 

Background

            On 16 April 2007, the deadliest campus mass shooting occurred in Virginia Tech taking the lives of 33 people including the shooter, wounding a number of students, and suspending the school and America in shock ( 2007a). Police identified the shooter as Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior student at the school majoring in English. Witnesses described Cho as a loner and eccentric by writing hateful statements and stalking girls. (2007b) Before the incident at Virginia Tech, another campus shooting occurred in 20 April 1999, when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold armed themselves and shot a teacher and twelve of their classmates at Columbine High School in Colorado. After the shooting, the two high school students killed themselves. Prior to the Columbine incident, there were already a number of school shootings reported in various states the previous two years alone. Nineteen other reported incidents of school killings located in sixteen states have also been documented (2001). This means that the crime of murder also occur in schools, previously perceived by communities as safe havens for their children. Most if not all of these campus killings have been found to be made with the willful intent to kill making the crime murder. Murder is the crime committed when killing a person or people is made with design to take life or malice. The punishment for this act depends upon the degree with a higher degree corresponding to a higher penalty. Murder is classified under violent crimes, making this act one of the crimes most abhorred by society.

 

Public Perception of Murder in Schools

            Initially, public perception of killings in schools is as a crime with somebody to blame such as the killer or killers themselves, teachers, parents or gun and ammunition retailers. Following the Columbine incident, the issue of gun control came out because the shooters who were high school students were able to access rifles they used to kill a teacher and their classmates. Public perception called for gun control that spurred the protest of the gun and ammunitions industry. It was through gun control or regulation that crimes related to firearms could be controlled. As the years passed, the advocacy died down and the clash between regulation and free trade came to a standstill. With the occurrence of the Virginia Tech incident, public perception again looked into crime prevention and pinpointed at the gun and ammunitions industry. However, it cannot be denied that there are other aspects of this issue although a complete understanding of murders in schools committed by students against their teachers and classmates remains elusive. This is a problem, which needs in-depth investigation. These incidents cannot be attributed to age or race because of the shooters in the reported school killing incidents were of different ages and school levels as well as of different race and ethnic background. Other factors could be considered but there are yet no studies providing conclusive reports on the relationship between other factors such as income and family background as the cause for the commission of murder in schools by schoolchildren. The difficulty in understanding murder in schools also comes from the varying public opinions on the cause and the means of allaying this social and legal problem.

            A clear and directed public perception on school murders is important in driving policy determination and decision-making on actions to assuage this social burden. Public perception is greatly influenced by the media because people depend upon media reports to gain knowledge of a crime or crime incidence. This implies the need for accuracy and objectivity of media reports in order to shape public advocacies. In a study by (1999) on the crime rate perception of the Irish public, survey results showed that the media should be blamed for the distorted public perception of reality. Even with a low crime rate in Ireland, the extent of coverage given to particular crimes influences the perception of crime rates. In another study, (2005) conducted a study on the German public to determine the link between television viewing and perceptions of crime. Although during the research period, the crime rate declined, the survey showed that perceptions of crime incidence significantly depend upon the content and pattern of television viewing. This means that public influence depend upon the strength of influence of both factual reports and fictional shows on perception. Public perception in turn influences crime policy. CNN (2001) reported that right after the Columbine shooting, NBC conducted a survey and determined that around seventy percent of Americans held the perception that school killings can happen in their schools or their communities.  

 

Investigating the Issue of School Killings

            As a criminal issue, school killings remain a complex issue due to a number of difficulties. First area of difficulty comprises the understanding of the issue. This constitutes a difficulty because of media intervention. Media as the primary source of intervention becomes problematic when reports lack accuracy or reports are highly sensationalized. If the public heavily relies upon news reports in forming their perceptions of a particular crime or crime rates, then public advocacy may become biased and crime policy development suffers. Second area of difficulty involves key issue determination. In a complex crime issue such as school killings, a number of or areas for consideration arises such as the cause of the crime, the parties directly and indirectly responsible for the crime, community responsibility in dealing with the causes of the crime, and the alternative solutions available to policy or decision-makers in addressing this issue. This difficulty is addressed through the provision of accurate information to the public by encouraging the public to consider a number of information sources including police reports, socio-civic reports, media reports and other sources of information for the public to understand the problem through various perspectives. This enables people to make informed decisions on advocacies to address this crime issue and influence crime policy-making.

            Without the resolution of these problem areas, school killings remain a complex and unresolved social issue in the United States. Requisite to the resolution of these difficulties is the public’s active involvement in considering media reports on campus murders.  

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