Education Week Examines the CEREMONIAL VIOLENCE of School Rampage Shootings

Education Week, has posted a rcview of Ceremonial Violence, Jonathan Fast's study of school rampage shootings in their current issue: " Is there such a thing as a "typical" teenage school shooter? After six years of researching such students and their crimes, Fast, a professor of social work at Yeshiva University in New York City, offers a qualified yes. He examines "school rampage" killings—attacks that occur on school grounds, are perpetrated by an adolescent, and have at least two victims apart from the attacker—and finds 13 cases from 1974 to 1999, which he profiles, six of them in great detail. (Similar instances falling outside the author's framework, such as the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting committed by a 23-year-old, are also discussed, but with less depth.) Fast compares the shooters in these rampages and discovers several common qualities: The student (nearly always male) had an unhappy childhood, usually was bullied, and often feels like a misfit in his family and/or community; he has a best friend who encourages the violent behavior, sometimes coaching him; he seeks attention, choosing to turn a suicide into a public event; and, once he has made his plans, he "announces" them, such as by telling others or recording them in a journal. The staging ofthe crimes is what make them "ceremonial"—one perpetrator Fast describes even played background music on a portable tape recorder during his assault. Among those profiled extensively are Eric Harris and Dylan Heboid, the students responsible for the Columbine High School shootings, as well as Brenda Spencer, a 16-year-old girl at the time of her crime. Fast concludes with recommendations for preventing such attacks and dealing with the aftermath, but the book focuses primarily on understanding the psychology of teenage shooters."

Jonathan Fast's CEREMONIAL VIOLENCE in Time Magazine

Jonathan Fast's Ceremonial Violence is reviewed in the current issue of Time magazine: "School shootings are among the most shocking acts of violence in modern America, and yet the one question asked by every parent and survivor--Why?--has rarely been systematically approached. Fast, a professor of social work at Yeshiva University, examines five case studies from 1974 to 1999--spending most of his time on 1999's Columbine massacre--hoping to figure out what drives young perpetrators to mass murder. Unfortunately, the motives are as varied as they are tragic: while Fast faults easy access to powerful firearms as a constant factor, sexual abuse, mental illness, broken homes and social isolation have all played a part in one rampage or another. Fast regards school shootings as "acts of terrorism without an ideological core" and believes that trying to predict them is largely futile. Most warning signs are overlooked or--in the case of one 16-year-old who advised his classmates on the best seats from which to view his killing spree--dismissed. The book is worth reading, if only as a reminder that the shooters, in some ways, are victims too."

Jonathan Fast's CEREMONIAL VIOLENCE Receives Starred Review in Publishers Weekly

Jonathan Fast's important new book, Ceremonial Violence: A Psychological Explanation of School Shootings, receives a Starred Review in this week's Publishers Weekly: "In this penetrating examination of the nation's school shootings, Fast, a professor of social work at Yeshiva University, explores such psychological theories as identity confusion and childhood abuse. Outlining 13 incidents, Fast concentrates on five between 1979 and the 1999 Columbine shootings. Each shooting is described in unflinching detail, from 16-year-old Brenda Spencer's declaration that her hatred of Mondays led her to kill two adults and wound eight children at a San Diego elementary school, to 16-year-old Luke Woodham's brutal matricide before killing two students and wounding six more at his high school. Avoiding simplistic labels, Fast builds a psychological profile of each teen, weighing upbringing and prior history of violence. His meticulously detailed portrait of Columbine's Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold anchors the work, and Fast dissects not only the boys themselves but the culture of Columbine as a school and Littleton, Colo., as a community. Although not a book about solutions, it is not without hope. Fast recognizes the impossibility of predicting school rampage shooters, but outlines clear and realistic goals for educators, community leaders, parents and students that could help prevent these violent attacks."

Overlook Preview: Jonathan Fast's CEREMONIAL VIOLENCE

Coming this September is an important new book on one of most serious issues of our times: school rampage shootings. Author Jonathan Fast, Ph.D., spent five years researching these senseless tragedies. Ceremonial Violence: A Psychological Explanation of School Shootings analyzes the Columbine high school shooting and four other cases and explains for the first time why teenagers commit school rampage shootings. With a clear grasp of the elements of abnormal psychology, developmental psychology, sociology, and neurology that contribute to the homicidal mindset, Fast offers us a means of understanding and coming to terms with these tragedies.