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Spree killing impacts significantly on emergency services and is becoming more prevalent across the world. The purpose of this paper is to explore the Cumbrian spree killing, which resulted in the fatal shooting of 12 people with a further 11 wounded. This study highlights why these events are so difficult to manage in an attempt to assist policy makers and practitioners deal with them more effectively.

A qualitative methodology was used, examining open source information and internal police documentation. This was supported by semi-structured interviews with command staff (three), and questionnaires involving a representative group of police staff (11), who were all deployed on the incident.

This case study mirrored the characteristics of many other spree killings. The sophistication of the killer, together with the speed of mobility, significantly increases the challenges posed to the police, specifically in terms of: deployment, decision making, interoperability and managing the media. Further, it questions the effectiveness of normal command and control management approaches that are typically used in these situations.

Spree killing (active shooter) events are increasing across the globe. This study highlights the critical challenges to be dealt with. It argues a more innovative inter-agency paradigm is needed to deal with crimes in action.

There are few academic papers in relation to spree killing. This paper analyses the factors that impact upon the effectiveness of the police response.

Rapid sequence homicide offenders (RSHOs), formerly spree killers, are an understudied population due to the confusion surrounding their classification in relation to serial murderers. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

An exploratory, comparative analysis of 56 RSHOs and 60 serial murderers was conducted on US-based data from 2014 to 2018 derived from the Consolidated Serial Homicide Offender Database to determine similarities and differences between the cohorts.

RSHOs and serial murderers are similar in that they often kill their victims using a singular method, have limited mobility, kill a similar number of victims both known and unknown to them and are both supremely motivated by domestic anger. There is an inverse relationship between serial murderers and RSHOs: as one group increases in prevalence the other decreases.

In order to divert men into more pro-social activities, attention must be dedicated to increasing mental health services that provide them with the tools to diffuse their hatred and couple that with effective gun control strategies and ways to enhance the compromised anger management skills of a generation of volatile men.

Academicians have been hesitant to juxtapose these offenders but based this conclusion on surface-level differences. A reimagining of these categorical structures is needed. The once clear delineation between these cohorts may continue to shrink and synchronize until one subsumes the other.

The purpose of this study is to explore the current literature which assesses the incidence of completed or attempted mass shooting events in which a female party acted either alone or as an accomplice; explore the involvement of women in the planning or execution of acts of terrorism; evaluate the pathology of women involved in these acts of extreme violence; highlight any gender-specific pathological and environmental risk factors associated with the planning or completion of the mass shooting, spree killing or terrorist attack events.

Using the 27-item preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses guidelines (Moher et al., 2009), the present systematic review explored peer-reviewed literature published between 1908 and September 2020 using six databases [SalfordUniversityJournals@Ovid; Journals@Ovid Full Text; APA PsycArticles Full Text; APA PsycExtra; APA PsycInfo; Ovid MEDLINE(R)], in addition to conducting a grey literature search on “Google Scholar” using specific search terms, predetermined following use of the patient/population, intervention, comparison framework.

Findings of the review did identify several distinguishing characteristics exclusive to women allied to terror organisations; including lower levels of extremism and religious ideology, lower age of radicalisation, higher levels of education than currently hypothesized and the significance of relational affiliation with extremist causes. Despite the synthesis of descriptive characterises being achieved, data relating to female mass shooters was scant and relied upon case study review and discussion. As a result, identification of precipitating psychopathological and environmental triggers was difficult, however, there does appear to be a higher proportion of female mass shooters targeting current or previous places of employment.

One of the potential limitations of this review is that some relevant studies were not identified during the search. The risk of this was minimised as much as possible by screening the reference section of relevant reviews and theoretical papers (which were identified in the search of the databases) for any potentially relevant studies that may have been missed. In addition, numerous permutations of the search criteria that were entered into the databases were also entered into “GoogleScholar”.

Current literature has highlighted that the age of radicalisation among women across both jihadi-inspired, right-wing and far-left extremist organisations are decreasing, with many new recruits being born after 1990 (Jacques and Taylor, 2012). This finding aids in identifying a target of entry to minimise the chance of radicalisation, through targeted educational training and anti-radicalisation programmes intervening in at risk groups at the correct time. However, further exploration will be necessary to identify specific risk factors prior to radicalisation in such groups.

There appears to be a large gap in literature quantitively assessing the rates of psychopathological variables among this demographic. When narrowing the lens further onto female mass shooters, empirical literature investigating even characteristic variables continues to evade the academic remit. Arguably this obstruction to the current understanding of female perpetrated violence, both in an organised terror and a mass shooter capacity, limits the ability to meaningfully evaluate whether previous models assessing risk among mass shooters is valid across genders.

The purpose of this article is to improve the use of evidence-based practice and research utilization in the offender profiling process. The use of offender profiling has been met with increasing resistance given its exaggerated accuracy. The “Investigative Journalist/Expert Field Micro Task Force” model, a collaborative method that incorporates offender profiling and is designed to address unresolved serial homicides, is introduced and evaluated alongside recommendations on attaining adherence.

The model was field tested in 17 instances. The measures used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to gauge the usefulness of their case consultations, whether their input helped catch the offender, offer new leads, move the case forward, provide new avenues or give new ideas, were used to evaluate the model.

The model established likely patterns of serial murder activity among strangulations of women in Chicago, Cleveland, and Panama and resulted in convictions of suspects in Louisiana and Kansas City. This model is valuable when used to parse modern-day offenders from those who committed unresolved homicides as the latter display different behaviors that can make investigations difficult endeavors. Results from the field tests mirror those from the literature in that profiling alone did not result in the capture of serial killers. Instead, profiling was used in conjunction with other efforts and mainly as a means to keep the investigation moving forward.

Unresolved homicides are at a point of crisis and represent a significant but largely unaddressed societal problem. The success of this model may compel law enforcement to restore faith in offender profiling.

The purpose of this paper is to explicate chaos theory metaphorically from a social science perspective to expand upon a relatively new theoretical framework for crisis communication in the public sector. Using the 2002 Washington, DC, area sniper shootings as a case study, the author unravel chaos theory in terms of a public safety crisis that required crisis communication by government officials.

The author analysed front-page coverage in The Washington Post and The New York Times as well as CNN coverage during the three weeks of the sniper shootings, 2 October through 25 October. In total, 56 (69 per cent) of the newspaper stories were published in The Washington Post, and 78 news segments were used from CNN archives. Each story was reviewed for evidence of chaotic elements and crisis communication responses using a code sheet, and the resulting thematic analysis created a composite description of the case.

This case exhibited the main characteristics of a chaotic system, including fractals, error of scale, bifurcation points, self-organisation, feedback, and strange attractors. The results describe how each element of chaos influenced the crisis communication efforts.

To date, there is no known research on law enforcement's efforts in crisis communication during the DC sniper shootings. There is also limited research in chaos theory and crisis response. This research may aid in communication efforts during future public safety crises and disasters.

Rape is one of the most heinous and underreported crimes against women. However, if women knew about recent technological advances in the war on rape, maybe they would report the crime more often. For example, biting incidents in connection with violent rapes are not rare. Consequently, bite mark evidence should be carefully searched for and uncovered early on in the beginning stages of all violent rape/murder investigations. The present case study analysis of nine serial rapists and murderers reveals and captures these criminals through the modern use of odontology. Modern technology in the form of alternate lighting, the skills of the criminal investigator, odontologist, and pathologist are combined in a team effort to bring these offenders to justice. Thus it is necessary to train law enforcement officers and to educate women to make them more aware of such crucial evidence, since many of these rapists are often repeat offenders.

The purpose of this paper is to review the existing literature on mass murder and amok, and the relationship of these phenomena to murder-suicide as well as to determine future research directions.

Research literature on mass murder, amok, and murder-suicide was reviewed in the context of recent developments in the understanding of suicide, aggressive behavior, and psychiatric diagnostics.

Amok, typically viewed as a culture-bound disorder, occurs throughout the world and is best characterized as mass murder, similar to school shootings. Additionally, the phenomenon of mass murder may be best understood as a form of murder-suicide, related to the phenomenon of suicide-by-cop.

This paper provides a review of the literature on murder-suicide, mass murder, and amok spanning over 110 years in the context of modern psychological research, new insights into the possible motivations of those who “run amok” and commit mass murder and provides future research directions for this important phenomenon.

This study examines a variety of personal and workplace topics to uncover why Asians are still underrepresented in US policing, despite a 114% growth in the Asian American population during the past 30 years.

Survey responses are collected from Asian police officers (N = 70) to capture their characteristics and lived experiences.

This study found 11 themes that may account for the underrepresentation of Asian Americans in US policing.

The small sample size represents those respondents from only four US states, limiting the sampling frame and generalizability.

This study offers targeted recruitment strategies for improving Asian representation in US policing.

Although Asians account for 6% of the US population, very little is still known about the experiences of Asian American police officers, despite working in one of the most visible public institutions in local government.

The purpose of this paper is to determine if consumers in two countries (Israel and the USA), which have experienced violence in the retail environment, would perceive risk in shopping on the internet and if so, to what extent. If there were perceptions of risk for shopping online, this paper wanted to report what differences there might be between Israeli and US consumers.

Surveys were distributed to 641 US consumers and to 50 Israeli consumers with a few modifications for differences in terms. The respondents ranged in age from 14 to 86. These surveys were distributed throughout the New York City tri‐state area and in Israel in a convenience sample using a snowball approach. The surveys were collected by the researchers and returned for analysis.

Women in the USA do consider buying online when concerned with physical safety, while Israeli women were very specific in their consideration of the type of site. For them, international sites like eBay were considered to be a safer alternative when the country was on a high‐security alert. Significantly more men are concerned about the possibilities of identity theft and financial fraud online than women while women think positively about buying online when concerned about physical.

In future research, it would be interesting to follow this focus of social norms for a preference for group social interaction and social norms for independent or individualization and the speed with which e‐commerce is infused within the culture versus using the internet to gather information or to communicate via e‐mail or blogs.

Consumers seem to want to reduce their overall perceived risk and evaluate what actions will lead to a lower total perceived risk. There are good reasons for a store to have both an online presence and a storefront. Stores with a physical presence that are known to the shoppers are more likely to be considered as safe for shopping online.

This is one of the first papers to contrast consumers from a country which has had years of experience with violence in the retail environment with the consumer experiences and perceptions in the USA.