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Books and Special Issues

All-American Massacre: The Tragic Role of American Culture and Society in Mass Shootings

Edited by Eric Madfis and Adam Lankford (2023)

 

What elements of contemporary American life contribute to the United States having the greatest number and highest share of public mass shootings around the globe? The editors and contributors to All-American Massacre seek to answer this question by exploring how masculinity, racism, politics, media, fame, education, gun culture, and mental health influence the causes of mass shootings in the United States.

How to Stop School Rampage Killing: Lessons from Averted Mass Shootings and Bombings

By Eric Madfis (2020)

This book tackles the important question of how we can understand and learn from the school rampage killings that have been prevented. In the flood of recent accounts and analyses of deadly school rampage killings that plague society and inspire widespread public fear, very little attention has been given to the incidents that almost were. Building on Madfis’ previous book, The Risk of School Rampage: Assessing and Preventing Threats of School Violence (2014), this vital work addresses key gaps in school violence scholarship through the examination of averted school rampage incidents in the United States and advances existing knowledge through ground-breaking insights from the latest research on mass murder, violence prevention, bystander intervention, disciplinary policy, and threat assessment in school contexts. This empirical study utilizes in-depth interviews conducted with school and police officials (administrators, counselors, security guards, police officers, and teachers) directly involved in averting potential school rampages to explore the processes by which threats are assessed and school rampage plots are thwarted. Madfis finds that many common contemporary school violence prevention policies and practices are ineffective at preventing rampage attacks and may actually increase the likelihood of their occurrence. Rather than uncritically adopting such problematic approaches, Madfis argues that schools must model prevention practices upon what has proven successful in averting potentially deadly incidents.

American Behavior Scientist Special Issue - Media Coverage of Mass Killers: Content, Consequences, and Solutions.

Edited by Adam Lankford and Eric Madfis (2018)

In recent years, major media organizations have wondered if their coverage of mass shooters actually increases the risk of future attacks and have asked how their reporting could be improved. In response, 149 experts have called for media to stop publishing the names and photos of mass killers (except during ongoing searches for escaped suspects) but continue reporting the other details of these crimes as needed. This special issue of American Behavioral Scientist features groundbreaking new scholarship on the nature of media coverage of mass killers, its consequences, and solutions that could help make this coverage safer.

The Risk of School Rampage: Assessing and Preventing Threats of School Violence

By Eric Madfis (2014)

By examining averted school rampage incidents, this book addresses problematic gaps in school violence scholarship and advances existing knowledge about mass murder, violence prevention, bystander intervention, threat assessment, and disciplinary policy in school contexts.

Journal Articles

Book Chapters

Madfis, E., & Lankford, A. (2023). Mass shootings and American culture and society. In E. Madfis & A. Lankford (Ed.) All-American massacre: The tragic role of American culture and society in mass shootings. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Madfis, E., & Cohen, J. Gender and mass shootings. (2023). In K.A. Bogle (Ed.) Gender-based crime: Learning through experts and cases. San Diego, CA: Cognella.

Madfis, E. (2018). Insight from averted mass shootings. In J. Schildkraut (Ed.) Mass shootings in America: Understanding the debates, causes, and responses (pp. 79-84). Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Books.

Levin, J., & Madfis, E. (2018, In Press). Rampage school shootings. In A.J. Treviño (Ed.) The Cambridge handbook of social problems. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Ackerman, A., Furman, R., Cohen, J., Madfis, E., & Sanchez, M. (2015). The use of masculinities in the understanding and treatment of male sexual offenders. In A. Ackerman & R. Furman (Eds.) Sexual crimes: Transnational problems and global perspectives (pp. 44-63). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Vysotsky, S., & Madfis, E. (2014). White supremacist stigma management and legitimation via anti-immigration activism: The case of the keystone state skinheads. In A. Ackerman & R. Furman (Eds.) The criminalization of immigration: Contexts and consequences (pp. 129-146). Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.

Muschert, G.W., & Madfis, E. (2013). Fear of school violence in the post-Columbine era. In G.W. Muschert, S. Henry, N. Bracy, & A. Peguero (Eds.). Responding to school violence: Confronting the Columbine effect (pp. 13-34). Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

Madfis, E., & Levin, J. (2013). School rampage in international perspective: The salience of cumulative strain theory. In N. Böckler, W. Heitmeyer, P. Sitzer, & T. Seeger (Eds). School shootings: International research, case studies, and concepts for prevention (pp. 79-104). New York, NY: Springer.

Levin, J., & Madfis, E. (2012). Cultivating bias in the media: Problematic presentations and future prospects. In D. Bissler & J. Conners (Eds.) The harms of crime media: Essays on the perpetuation of racism, sexism and class stereotypes (pp. 239-247). Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company Inc.

Levin, J., & Madfis, E. (2008). The changing qualities of violence in American popular culture. In D. Pardue (Ed.) Ruminations on violence (pp. 181-191). Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.

 

Encyclopedia Entries and Book Reviews

Madfis, E. (2017). Book review of Mass shootings: Media, myths, and realities by Jaclyn Schildkraut and H. Jaymi Elsass. Criminal Law & Criminal Justice Books. Rutgers School of Law and School of Criminal Justice.

Madfis, E. (2014). Postmodern criminology. In J. M. Miller (Ed.) The encyclopedia of theoretical criminology. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Madfis, E. (2014). Mass murder. In J.S. Albanese (Ed.) The encyclopedia of criminology & criminal justice. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Madfis, E. (2008). Ritual killing. In A. Embar-Seddon & A. Pass (Eds.) Forensic science. Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, Inc.

Madfis, E. (2006). Book review of Federal narcotic laws and the war on drugs: Money down a rat hole by Thomas C. Rowe. BiMonthly Review of Law Books, 17 (5), 15-16.