Citation

Amman M, Burnette AG, Crowley B. J. Threat Assess. Manag. 2022; 9(2): 111-128.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, American Psychological Association)

DOI

10.1037/tam0000177

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Targeted violence research has primarily focused on mass attacks involving firearms or explosives. This descriptive study investigated an international sample of 138 mass stabbing attacks that were identified through open-source internet searches and occurred across a 13-year period. The majority of mass stabbing attacks were perpetrated by a single, male offender using a knife. Half of the attacks occurred in China. A third of attacks (34%) were primarily motivated by the perpetrator's reported mental illness. About half of the victims had some type of relationship with the attacker and a quarter of the victims were children or adolescents. Secondary analyses showed a relationship between attack location and motive, such that attacks reported to be primarily motivated by mental illness were disproportionately more likely to occur at schools. The majority of mass stabbing attacks resulted in some type of judicial proceedings against the perpetrator. These results will assist threat assessment professionals in assessing potential mass stabbing incidents and intervening prior to an incident of targeted violence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Language: en