ISU professor: ‘No silver bullet’ to preventing youth violence

AMES - The United States on Friday saw another school shooting perpetrated by a student, resurrecting and reinvigorating the same questions and debate that have emerged following previous tragedies - what precipitated the violence and what can be done to prevent it?

Matt DeLisi, professor and coordinator of Criminal Justice Studies at Iowa State University, has been researching the topic and in a study published just days before the fatal shooting Friday at a Washington high school, DeLisi reports there is 'no silver bullet.”

The study, published in the Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice journal, instead identifies a handful of predictors and risk factors that seem to distinguish youth offenders who have killed or tried to kill from other serious youth offenders who have not.

The homicidal juveniles all were slightly older, had a 'significantly” lower IQ, were exposed to more actual violence, perceived that they lived in a violent or chaotic neighborhood, and were more likely to carry a handgun.

Of the 1,354 youths analyzed for the study - 14- to 17-year-olds found guilty of a serious offense in Maricopa County, Ariz., or Philadelphia County, Penn. - only 18 were charged with some type of homicide, including murder, attempted murder or involuntary manslaughter.

DeLisi and his colleagues with the University of Texas at Dallas reviewed 43 individual, familial, environmental, and situational risk factors, and the 18 homicidal teens stood out from the rest of the pack in only five categories.

The youths convicted in a killing or attempted killing were, on average, 16.5 years old and reported an average IQ score of 79 - compared with 85 for the rest of the offenders and 100 for the general public, according to the study. Of the five risk factors identified in the study, exposure to violence represented the most significant gap between the two groups.

The exposure was not to media violence but rather direct observational exposure to violence. Offenders were asked if they had witnessed a rape, shooting, or assault and if they had been chased and thought they would be seriously injured, according to the study.

'But they generally were comparable in everything else,” DeLisi said of the more than 1,300 teens analyzed. 'Most had a low socio-economic status. Most had family members in and out of the justice system. A good number had been both bully offenders and victims.”

They all tended to have self-regulation problems and cognitive issues that made school difficult.

'They are different from this case up in Washington,” DeLisi said.

Jaylen Fryberg, the 14-year-old freshman who witnesses said opened fire Friday in the Marysville-Pilchuck High School lunchroom - 34 miles north of Seattle - was 'popular,” athletic, and from a prominent family in the community, according to media reports.

He killed one student at the scene and seriously or critically injured four others before taking his own life, according to investigators. One of those injured died Sunday night, bringing the death toll to three. Witnesses have reported that Fryberg targeted his own cousins and friends.

DeLisi, who coincidently was interviewed about his teen-violence research by a Seattle-based radio station hours before the shooting, said Fryberg doesn't fit the stereotype. Many school shooters tend to be alienated or ostracized and suffer from psychiatric problems.

They might target athletes or popular students for those reasons.

The case involving Fryberg, who witnesses said had been elected to the homecoming court and was on the football team, highlights the challenge of identifying good predictors of youth violence and creating policy to prevent it, DeLisi said.

'It's very difficult to forecast,” he said. 'And if there is a profile of alienated youth, this shooter wasn't that.”

More research needs to happen before policymakers can pinpoint changes to further reduce teen violence, according to DeLisi. But, he said, his study in general shows exposure to negativity, violence, and firearms plays a role.

'To the degree you can limit access to those things is a positive thing,” he said. 'And it behooves parents and educators to know socially what is going on in school.”

Nowadays, according to DeLisi, that includes social media. Bullying in the hallways is being supplemented on websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

'Being mindful of all those sparks can go a long way in defusing these situations,” he said.

And since the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado during which two students killed 12 of their peers, one teacher, and themselves, 'dozens and dozens and dozens” of potential school shootings have been successfully stopped, DeLisi said.

'We hear about the successful ones,” he said. 'But there are many more unsuccessful ones because authorities are keying in on these risk factors.”