Plotters of school killings tend to tip off someone in advance “There are hundreds of thousands of students who fit the profile of the school shooter and wouldn’t hurt anybody,” said Jack Levin, a Northeastern University sociologist and criminologist who studies mass murder. One reason the description is so broad is that school shootings are rare. More Americans are struck by lightning each year than killed […]
Mass. jobless rate steady in November The Massachusetts unemployment rate held steady at 6.6 percent in November, putting an end to a four-month streak of increases, and keeping jobless numbers well below the national average of 7.7 percent. About 1,100 jobs were lost last month, the state Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development said Thursday, but year-over-year numbers showed the […]
Intense Alienation Can Be an Incubator for Violence Cities breed their own pathologies, and homicide is a predominantly urban form of lawlessness. But mass murder, in fact, is not. When James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University who has written extensively about extreme killing, compiled homicide data from across the country for 1976 to 2010, he found that 64 percent of mass […]
Boston.com Reverse innovation’s big impact for consumers For most of the last two centuries innovations have flowed from rich countries to poor countries, but in the coming decades we are likely to see innovations also flow in the opposite direction, from poor to rich countries. If “reverse innovation” sounds counter-intuitive, it is. One can readily understand why poor countries will embrace innovations […]
How to prevent school shootings In the aftermath of the tragic massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.., President Obama has called for a national conversation regarding the prevention of future attacks on America’s children. Thus far, the possibility of eliminating semi-automatic weapons has taken center stage. Yet there are other possibilities — perhaps vastly more effective than any […]
Rejection, bullying are risk factors among shooters If you’re wondering who else in the United States might fit a “profile” of becoming a mass killer, just look around: They are everywhere, and they’re most likely harmless. Frighteningly, we have little idea about what separates those who ponder committing slaughter from those who go through with it. Experts say that risk factors, such […]
How to handle an airline downgrade There is lots of urban lore about coach passengers on airlines being magically upgraded to first-class seats, but less is said when it happens the other way around. But this does happen – a lot. While airlines do not typically charge more for passengers bumped up, those who paid extra for a special seat have […]
Advice To The Next President: Leveraging The Power Of The Oval Office His hard-fought reelection campaign behind him, President Barack Obama is undoubtedly taking stock of the opportunities and challenges that await him in his second term. To help us understand those key issues, we turn to two people with broad experience in state and national politics, and the challenges of being an elected chief executive. One […]
White House Floats Its Ideas on Gun Control The White House threw its support behind several gun-control measures Tuesday, including requiring background checks at gun shows and for other private sales—ideas likely to face stiff opposition from most congressional Republicans and the powerful gun lobby. President Barack Obama also wants to renew the expired ban on assault weapons and consider limits on high-capacity […]
Top 10 Myths About Mass Shootings Even before the death toll in last Friday’s school massacre in Newtown, Conn., was determined, politicians, pundits, and professors of varied disciplines were all over the news, pushing their proposals for change. Some talked about the role of guns, others about mental-health services, and still more about the need for better security in schools and […]
The Pressures, Procedures Of Mass Murder Investigations Investigators have been slowly releasing information about the Newtown, Conn. shooting that claimed the lives of 20 children, six adults and the gunman. As the investigation unfolds, a number of questions are being raised about how law enforcement decides what information should be made public.