How often do public mass shooters target specific women?

As found in one of the studies in today's Crime Research Update

Mar 21, 2025

Hello! I'm Aaron Jacklin, and this is The Art of Explaining Crime, an independent newsletter that helps you think and write about crime.

Use this tip sheet to help you integrate the latest research into your work. It's a directory of new crime research published by the academic journals that I monitor. The directory includes, for example, this study listing:

Public Mass Shooters Who Target Specific Women: An Empirical Analysis of Target–Offender Relationships, Timing, and Key Characteristics
Journal: Violence Against Women
Keywords: violence, domestic abuse, offender, offending
First author: Adam Lankford (Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL USA) [+1 other author]

In this study, researchers found that nearly a quarter of public mass shooters target specific women and that 80% of targeted women were killed.

You’ll find more listings for today’s new research below.

"Crime Research Update" appears in the foreground. In the background, yellow tape is strung across the image, in front of a police cruiser that sits with its roof lights on. — Photo by Campbell Jensen on Unsplash. Modified by Aaron Jacklin in Canva.

The research listings for today's research are sorted by two broad categories: crime type and criminal justice/legal system stage. Research that doesn’t get sorted into those categories follows under “Unsorted Research.”

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Research by type of crime

Violence

Are Rape Myths Inherently Gendered? Examining Assumed Gender Ascribed to Gender-Neutral Versions of the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale Among College Students

Journal: Violence Against Women
Keywords: assault, violence, sexual violence, rape, victim
First author: Olivia M. Kleinsmith (Department of Health Sciences, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, USA) [+10 other authors]

Public Mass Shooters Who Target Specific Women: An Empirical Analysis of Target–Offender Relationships, Timing, and Key Characteristics

Journal: Violence Against Women
Keywords: violence, domestic abuse, offender, offending
First author: Adam Lankford (Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL USA) [+1 other author]

Omnipresence, Victim-Shaming and Non-Action: Young People's Views on Sexual Harassment in the #Metoo Era

Journal: Violence Against Women
Keywords: violence, victim
First author: Satu Venäläinen (Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland)

Flattening the curve? The role of the state in mediating cumulative extremism dynamics in Northern Ireland, 1969–1975

Journal: Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression
Keywords: aggression, terrorism
First author: Shaun McDaid (Leeds Trinity University) [+1 other author]

Property

None found today.

Drugs

Moving Beyond the Average Gang Membership Effect: Investigating Treatment Effect Heterogeneity in Concurrent and Long-Term Outcomes

Journal: Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency
Keywords: drug use, drug, gang, offending, incarceration
First author: Jean Marie McGloin (Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA) [+2 other authors]

Nicotine Pouch Use and Adolescents’ and Children’s Grades in School, National Youth Tobacco Survey 2022–23

Journal: Substance Use & Misuse
Keywords: substance use
First author: R. Constance Wiener (Department of Dental Public Health and Professional Practice, School of Dentistry, West Virginia University) [+2 other authors]

White Collar

The forces of resistance: how the Lawyer X scandal illustrates the challenge of holding Victoria Police accountable

Journal: Current Issues in Criminal Justice
Keywords: scandal, police, criminal justice, law
First author: Pascale Chifflet (La Trobe Law School) [+1 other author]

Organized

Moving Beyond the Average Gang Membership Effect: Investigating Treatment Effect Heterogeneity in Concurrent and Long-Term Outcomes

Technology Facilitated

Ransomware crime through the lens of neutralisation theory

Journal: European Journal of Criminology
Keywords: ransomware, offender
First author: Lena Yuryna Connolly (Zayed University, United Arab Emirates) [+2 other authors]

Research by criminal justice/legal system stage

Offending

Ransomware crime through the lens of neutralisation theory

Journal: European Journal of Criminology
Keywords: ransomware, offender
First author: Lena Yuryna Connolly (Zayed University, United Arab Emirates) [+2 other authors]

Intersecting Pathways: The Complex Understanding of Roma Women Post-Incarceration Trajectories Through Intersectionality

Journal: International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology
Keywords: offender, trauma, prison, incarceration, release
First author: Ioan Durnescu (University of Bucharest, Romania)

Moving Beyond the Average Gang Membership Effect: Investigating Treatment Effect Heterogeneity in Concurrent and Long-Term Outcomes

Public Mass Shooters Who Target Specific Women: An Empirical Analysis of Target–Offender Relationships, Timing, and Key Characteristics

Victimization

Intersecting Pathways: The Complex Understanding of Roma Women Post-Incarceration Trajectories Through Intersectionality

Are Rape Myths Inherently Gendered? Examining Assumed Gender Ascribed to Gender-Neutral Versions of the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale Among College Students

Omnipresence, Victim-Shaming and Non-Action: Young People's Views on Sexual Harassment in the #Metoo Era

Journal: Violence Against Women
Keywords: violence, victim
First author: Satu Venäläinen (Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland)

Policing

The forces of resistance: how the Lawyer X scandal illustrates the challenge of holding Victoria Police accountable

Journal: Current Issues in Criminal Justice
Keywords: scandal, police, criminal justice, law
First author: Pascale Chifflet (La Trobe Law School) [+1 other author]

Courts

None found today.

Corrections

Intersecting Pathways: The Complex Understanding of Roma Women Post-Incarceration Trajectories Through Intersectionality

Moving Beyond the Average Gang Membership Effect: Investigating Treatment Effect Heterogeneity in Concurrent and Long-Term Outcomes

Understanding the Nature and Prevalence of Sexual Misconduct in the UK Prison and Probation Service

Journal: The Prison Journal
Keywords: prison, incarcerate, probation
First author: Jessica Bone (His Majesty’s Prison & Probation Service, London, UK) [+1 other author]

Public Policy

The forces of resistance: how the Lawyer X scandal illustrates the challenge of holding Victoria Police accountable

Journal: Current Issues in Criminal Justice
Keywords: scandal, police, criminal justice, law
First author: Pascale Chifflet (La Trobe Law School) [+1 other author]

Unsorted Research

All of today's research was sorted into the above categories.

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Crime Research Update and Five Studies About are the output of my research discovery system.

How often do public mass shooters target specific women?

As found in one of the studies in today's Crime Research Update

Research by type of crime

Violence

Property

Drugs

White Collar

Organized

Technology Facilitated

Research by criminal justice/legal system stage

Offending

Victimization

Policing

Courts

Corrections

Public Policy

Unsorted Research

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