Main Content
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
Madfis,Eric, Silva, Jason R., Crepeau-Hobson, Franci & Sulkowski, Michael L. (2025) School Threat Assessment Team Recommendations: Surveillance Versus Social Support and Racial/Ethnic Equity. School Psychology Review.
Walach, V., & Kupka, P. Interview of Eric Madfis (2024). Focus on what can really help: Create a positive school climate, build systems of support, promote information sharing. Czech Journal of Criminology, 1-18.
Silva, J.R. (2023). Advancing understanding of global mass murder: A comparison of public mass stabbings and shootings. Homicide Studies. OnlineFirst.
Silva, J.R. & Greene-Colozzi, E.A. (2023). Assessing leakage-based mass shooting prevention: A comparison of foiled and completed attacks. Journal of Threat Assessment and Management. OnlineFirst.
Arford, T., & Madfis, E. (2022). Whitewashing criminology: A critical tour of Cesare Lombroso’s Museum of Criminal Anthropology. Critical Criminology, 30, 723–740.
Silva, J.R. (2022). Global mass shootings: Comparing the United States against developed and developing countries. International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice. OnlineFirst.
Silva, J.R. & Lankford, A. (2022). The globalization of American mass shootings? An assessment of fame-seeking perpetrators and their influence worldwide. International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice. OnlineFirst.
Hawes, J., & Madfis, E. (2022). Defining rampage violence across completion status: Towards a more comprehensive model. Journal of Mass Violence Research, 1(2), 42-52.
Silva, J. R. (2022). A comprehensive study of public, family, and felony mass shootings in the United States, 2006-2020. Violence and Victims, 37(6), 717-738.
Silva, J. R. (2022). Mass shooting outcomes: A comparison of completed, attempted, failed, and foiled incidents in America. Deviant Behavior, 43(12), 1487-1506.
Madfis, E., Hirschfield, P., & Addington, L. (2021). School securitization and its alternatives: The social, political, and contextual drivers of school safety policy and practice. School Psychology Review, 50(2-3), 191-205.
Cornell, D. G., Mayer, M. J., & Sulkowski, M. L. (2021). History and future of school safety research. School Psychology Review, 50(2-3), 143–157.
Silva, J. R., Capellan, J. A., Schmuhl, M. A., & Mills, C. E. (2021). Gender-based mass shootings: An examination of attacks motivated by grievances against women. Violence against Women, 27(12-13), 2163-2186.
Schildkraut, J., Elsass, J., Haenfler, R., Klocke, B., Madfis, E., & Muschert, G. (2021). Moral panic, fear of crime, and school shootings: Does location matter? Sociological Inquiry, 91(2), 426-454.
Sommer, F., Leuschner, V., Fiedler, N., Madfis, E., & Scheithauer, H. (2020). The role of shame in developmental trajectories towards severe targeted school violence: An in-depth multiple-case study. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 51, 101386.
Cimetta, A. D., Sulkowski, M. L., Cutshaw, C. A., Yaden, D. B., & Marx, R. W. (2020). Does having a young child with emotional and behavioral risk factors influence firearm ownership and storage? Journal of Education and Human Development.
Madfis, E., & Vysotsky, S. (2020). Exploring subcultural trajectories: Racist skinhead disengagement, desistance, and countercultural value persistence. Sociological Focus, 52(3), 221-235.
Lamoreaux, D., & Sulkowski, M. L. (2020b). Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) in schools: Students’ perceptions of safety and psychological comfort. Psychology in the Schools.
Lamoreaux, D., & Sulkowski, M. L. (2020a). An alternative to fortified schools: Using crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) to balance student safety and psychological wellbeing. Psychology in the Schools, 57(1), 152–165.
Lankford, A., Adkins, K.G., & Madfis, E. (2019). Are the deadliest mass shootings preventable? An assessment of leakage, information reported to law enforcement, and firearms acquisition prior to attacks in the United States. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 35(3), 315-341.
Arluke, A., Lankford, A., & Madfis, E. (2018). Harming animals and massacring humans: Characteristics of active and mass shooters who abused animals. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 36(6), 739-751.
Sulkowski, M. L., & Simmons, J. A. (2018). The protective role of teacher-student relationships against peer victimization and psychosocial distress.Psychology in the Schools, 55(2), 137–150.
Madfis, E., & Cohen, J.W. (2018). Female involvement in school rampage plots. Violence and Gender, 5(2), 81-86.
Lankford, A., & Madfis, E. (2018). Media coverage of mass killers: Content, consequences, and solutions. American Behavioral Scientist, 62(2), 151-162.
Lankford, A., & Madfis, E. (2018). Don’t name them, don’t show them, but report everything else: A pragmatic proposal for denying mass shooters the attention they seek and deterring future offenders. American Behavioral Scientist, 62(2), 260-279.
Madfis, E. (2017). In search of meaning: Are school rampage shootings random and senseless violence? The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied, 151(1), 21-35.
Madfis, E., & Cohen, J.W. (2016). Critical criminologies of the present and future: Left realism, left idealism, and what’s left in between. Social Justice: A Journal of Crime, Conflict & World Order. 43(4), 1-21.
Yoon, J., Sulkowski, M. L., & Bauman, S. (2016).Teachers’ responses to bullying incidents: Effects of teacher characteristics and contexts. Journal of School Violence, 15(1), 91–113.
Madfis, E. (2016). “It’s better to overreact”: School officials’ fear and perceived risk of rampage attacks and the criminalization of American public schools. Critical Criminology, 24(1), 39-55.
Vysotsky, S., & Madfis, E. (2015). Uniting the right: Anti-immigration organizing and the legitimation of extreme racist organizations. Journal of Hate Studies, 12(1), 129-151.
Madfis, E. (2014). Averting school rampage: Student intervention amid a persistent code of silence. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 12(3), 229-249.
Sulkowski, M. L., Bauman, S., Wright, S., Nixon, C., & Davis, S. (2014). Peer victimization in youth from immigrant and non-immigrant U.S. families.School Psychology International, 35(6), 649–669.
Madfis, E. (2014). Triple entitlement and homicidal anger: An exploration of the intersectional identities of American mass murderers. Men and Masculinities, 17(1), 67-86.
Sulkowski, M. L., Bauman, S., Dinner, S., Nixon, C., & Davis, S. (2014). An investigation into how students’ respond to being victimized by peer aggression. Journal of School Violence, 13, 339–358.
Arluke, A., & Madfis, E. (2014). Animal abuse as a warning sign of school massacres: A critique and refinement. Homicide Studies, 18(1), 7-22.
Madfis, E., & Arford, T. (2013). The dilemmas of embodied symbolic representation: Regret in contemporary American tattoo narratives. The Social Science Journal, 50(4), 547-556.
Madfis, E. (2012). Across crimes, criminals, and contexts: Traps along the troubled path towards a general theory of crime. Critical Criminology, 20(4), 429-445.
Sulkowski, M. L., & Lazarus, P. J. (2011). Contemporary responses to violent attacks on college campuses. Journal of School Violence, 10(4), 338–354.
Sulkowski, M. L. (2011). An investigation of students’ willingness to report threats of violence in campus communities. Psychology of Violence, 1(1), 53–65.
Levin, J., & Madfis, E. (2009). Mass murder at school and cumulative strain: A sequential model. American Behavioral Scientist, 52(9), 1227-1245.
Hartley, J., Madfis, E., Pell, E., & Potter, D. (2006). States’ initiatives to address the needs of persons dually diagnosed with psychiatric and developmental disabilities. Community Living Briefs, 4(2), 1-12.
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. (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.
