...CASE STUDY PAPER 1 Kid Killers: Delinquency Theories Arache Lotfalian UMUC CCJS 350 Professor Donovan 11/29/2012 CASE STUDY PAPER 2 In the middle class suburban town of Littleton, near Denver Colorado, a 17 year old murderous fantasy is beginning to take shape. Eric Harris and a friend known as “Vulcan” or “V” intend to commit an act so violent that it will secure their place in history. The following is an expert from Harris’s Journal, mastermind behind the Columbine Shooting: “Sometime in April next year, me and “V” will get revenge, kick natural selection up a few notches. If we’ve learned anything about the art of making pipe bombs, we’ll set hundreds of them around roads, bridges, buildings, and gas stations; anything that will cause damage and chaos. It will be like the L.A. riots, Oklahoma City bombings, WWII, Vietnam, Duke and Doom all mixed together. I want to leave a lasting impression on the world.” One year later on April the 20th 1999, Eric Harris and another Columbine student, Dylan Klebold, committed the worst High School massacre in American history. They killed twelve students and one teacher; injured twenty three others and then turned the guns on themselves (Avila, 2000). Immediately following the mass shootings, media, sociologists and criminologists set about the difficult task of discovering the motives of the killers and answering the question of whether or not problems within society allowed this to happen....
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...“Bowling for Columbine” Film Analysis On April 20, 1999, many people’s lives drastically changed. An incident that occurred in Littleton, Colorado created a jaw dropping event that disrupted all of America. It also stopped Michael Moore right in his tracks. Not long after the incident, Michael Moore decided to make a documentary called “Bowling for Columbine,” a film that acknowledged many important points that are usually ignored and overlooked. This documentary focused on a school shooting that never should have happened. This tragic incident lead Moore to ponder many questions and create an extremely interesting documentary. Michael Moore has been in the film industry for quite some time. He’s created numerous documentaries that have received a large amount of public attention. He is also a filmmaker, author and political activist that not only knows how to work a camera, but also an audience (Deming). In his documentary “Bowling for Columbine”, Moore uses facts, interviews, and personal stories to really get the viewers undivided attention. He also uses multiple statistics to prove his points throughout the documentary. In 2002, Moore won an Oscar for the Best Documentary Film for “Bowling for Columbine” (Ecksel 1). This film not only touched the hearts of many Americans, but also created an argument for several businesses and associations that were involved. On April 20, 1999, the halls of Columbine High School changed forever. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris altered...
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...classmates walk in with guns, shooting you and your fellow peers. The idea might sound far off, but that is what happened at the Columbine High School shooting on April 20, 1999. According to a school safety timeline, “Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, go on a shooting rampage and kill 12 students and one teacher, wound 23 others and then kill themselves” (School Safety Timeline). Weapons were not allowed at the high school, but that did not stop the students. However, there is a large debate going on about whether or not teachers and college students should be allowed to carry concealed weapons on school grounds for self-defense. If teachers and university...
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...Running Head: Safety in Schools Safety in Schools Strawberry Rosario ENG 215 Research and Writing Professor Allegra Strayer University June 13, 2011 Safety in Schools Today, school officials deal with violence, drugs, weapons, gangs, shootings, murders and theft to name a few, the public school system should prioritize security services on campus. Parents want to feel that their children's school is safe and secure. Since violence in schools has increased drastically, police officers, video surveillance, and metal detectors are security tools that should be used and installed in schools to improve a safer environment for students. School Resource Officers (SROs) are often sworn police officers employed by the local Police Department and assigned to patrol public school hallways full time. In larger jurisdictions, these police officers may be employed directly by the school district (Kim, 2010). Since violence is common especially with high school students, these police officers help the students understand that they are in the school to protect them but at the same time to enforce the law and good behavior (Geronimo, 2010). School Resource Officers are responsible for criminal law issues, not school discipline issues. They work to prevent juvenile delinquency through close contact and positive relationships with students. In addition, the SRO’s develop crime prevention...
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...blamed on the influence of the game Call of Duty by the New York Times, which he supposedly spent a lot of time playing alone in his basement. The hypodermic needle theory is also known as the hypodermic-syringe model of communications, and is referred to as the magic bullet theory. It implied mass media had a direct, immediate and powerful effect on its audiences. The mass media in the 1940s and 1950s was perceived as a powerful influence on behaviour change, yet according to Katz and Lazarfeld (1955), the model is rooted in 1930s behaviorism and is concerned by many to be obsolete today. The hypodermic needle model suggests that media messages are injected straight into a passive audience which is immediately influenced by the message. The study known as ‘The Bobo Doll Experiment’ proved that children copy adult’s actions – they watched adults abusing life sized dolls in laboratory conditions, and then mimicked this behaviour later when playing. This showed that children will replicate what they see adult’s doing, which would imply that they’d imitate what they see them doing in the media – such as shooting in games, or swearing in...
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...shootings, making the user more aggressive and heartless, and it can be also be linked to the decrease in prosocial behavior. Before all else, there are multiple cases in which violent video games have been intertwined with certain negative situations. Some cases of major importance that have caused a large amount of pain, such as school shootings, have been found to be traced back to a violent video game that the shooter may have been in possession of. This can be observed and proven true by looking at some cases such as the Columbine school shooting. In the Columbine school shooting, two boys, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, attacked Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. According to the History website, they attempted to have a propane bomb explode in the cafeteria and when it failed to detonate, they went into the school themselves and began...
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...Failures in the Media During Columbine Shooting Lauren Barber History of U.S. Mass Media Professor Todd Schack November 10, 2009 Judgment Day April 20, 1999 marks the day of one of the bloodiest and most horrific school shootings in American history. Until the 2007 shooting at Virginia Technical Institute, it was the worst school shooting to date. On this day, two seniors, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, entered Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado and went on a killing spree for approximately 49 minutes, leaving 24 injured and 15 dead, including themselves. The two students had been planning this attack on the school for over a year. Had their plan gone accordingly, the carnage would have been far more severe. The boys skipped their first period that day, arriving just before the lunch hour dressed in black trench coats carrying “several CO2 bombs, one semi-automatic 9mm handgun, a 9mm carbine rifle, a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun, and a sawed-off 12-gauge pump shotgun” (“Columbine”). They were also each carrying a duffel bag containing a twenty-pound propane bomb (“Columbine”). They placed a bomb in the cafeteria, set to explode at 11:17 a.m., the time when the most students would be in one concentrated area. The homemade bomb was strategically placed in the cafeteria to blow the ceiling of the room out, bringing the library crashing down upon explosion, killing another room full of students and faculty simultaneously. The two boys would...
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...Is it ethical? Mary Ashley Badgett Communication Ethics November 6, 2013 Violent Video Game Advertising: Is it ethical? Section I: Summary Controversy over violent video games resurfaced in 1999, when two armed high school students instantly became killers of their peers. On April 20, 1999, at a Colorado high school, known as Columbine High, two students Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris opened fire, shooting 20 people and killing 13. The media revealed that Harris and Klebold constantly played violent video games, including “Wolfenstein 3D,” “Doom,” and “Mortal Combat.” Following the allegations of the Columbine case, it was announced that the rapid use of violent video games perhaps caused the tragedy to occur (Columbine Massacre). Is it ethical to advertise video games that display violence and encourage violent behaviors, specifically on television networks such as Nick and Cartoon Network, channels subjected to children? According to the Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, advertising has a pervasive influence on children and adolescents. Per year, young people on an average view more than 40,000 ads on television alone, not including the types of advertising one could be exposed to in magazines, on the internet, or in school. “Video games carry ratings, and supposedly no one under 16 is able to buy a "mature" game, but the Federal Trade Commission found more than two-thirds of underage teens could buy such violent video games (The Christian...
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...Effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Post traumatic stress disorder, also known as PTSD, is an anxiety disorder that is developed after people are exposed to a horrific or life-threatening experience. Symptoms of PTSD may appear immediately or it may appear years later. Even though they may not be present for the traumatic event, family members and significant others such as spouses can be affected indirectly and can also develop certain behaviors. PTSD is commonly characterized by flashbacks and recurrent dreams; sudden irritability and outbursts toward another person without any obvious or known reasons; and restlessness or difficulty sleeping and concentrating. (Neeb, page 169) Traumatic experiences such as witnessing the death of a loved one, being sexually abused or assaulted, being exposed to a war, and being involved in a devastating accident can all cause PTSD. The likelihood of a person developing PTSD is based on the intensity of the trauma. According to the National Institute of Health, once PTSD has developed, women are more prone to experience chronic symptoms of this disorder compared to men. PTSD not only affects the person directly involved in the traumatic situation, but it can also affect people indirectly through exposure to a devastating event. I have recently experienced a very traumatic situation that had caused some early signs of PTSD. My cousin, John, was recently murdered in the comfort of his own home. His wife found him dead after returning...
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...Youth Violence Ever since the horrible tragedy at Columbine High School, there has been a number of recent school shootings in America. Youth violence is a main issue in today’s society. Many people fear what causes youngsters to be so violent, committing atrocious. There are many wonders that go around about why young adolescents commit such violent crimes. These questions vary from why kids take guns to school, or how do we know if they are putting others in danger, what signs are there, what should be looked at, and what can be done to stop these acts of violence. I remember watching the MTV special “Warning Signs”; it explained the violence in our society today. In the video they talked with young adolescents and asked them questions dealing with crimes they have been institutionalized for. The video also explained warning signs of someone who may be planning to commit an act of violence. Study has shown that anger plays a major role in ones behavior problem. Aggression is any form of behavior intended to harm or injure another living being. There are many reasons why someone acts in an aggressive way. First, many people have an instinct of being aggressive towards certain individuals, second genes are another factor that can develop from a complex interaction of biology, social experience, and each individuals behavior, t... The potential influence of violent video games on youth violence remains an issue of concern for psychologists, policymakers...
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...and Violent Video Games Jerry Pierre Post University Strategic analytical studies including well-identified statistics have shown that the violence between youth is increasing drastically every year. Inconsiderable amount of people blame Mainstream Musical Artists in all genres who portray abrogating actions, as something affirmative. Others might blame the guardians for not overseeing their children, but many people fail to convey technology as a bombshell. The au courant DVD that visually shows violent sex acts and violence or computers that give adolescence ingress to unauthorized sites, technology is something that many guardians need to have full introspection awareness. Annulling video games can also have a major impact on a child’s introspective and vitality. Video games have a negative impact on young children’s behavior in today’s commonality. Video games are expediently the utmost asked for when a child sits on Saint Nicholas lap the season of nativity, to include when making a wish while blowing out the candles on their birthday cake. The latest installment in the Modern Warfare 3 video game franchise Call of Duty reached outlandish sales of $775,000,000 in five days. At Sixty dollars, that means that this game is present in over 12,000,000 homes worldwide. Whereas the gaming industry is a remunerative one, it can also have contrary effects on children and adolescents. Scientific studies, done by researchers and psychologist around the world, show that impetuous...
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...tardiness). In many cases, punishment for a violation under the policy is usually suspension or expulsion from school. Zero Tolerance Policy was originally applied to the criminal justice system as an approach to enforcing drug laws. Due to overwhelming tide of violence, educators in the early 1900’s were seeking a solution to respond towards drugs, gangs and weapons. Eventually the policy has been implemented nationwide through the Gun Free Schools Act of 1994, which mandates a one-year expulsion for students who have been determined to have brought a firearm or any instrument that can be used as a weapon to school as reported in a study done by Boccanfuso C. & Kuhfeld M. Following the Columbine High School massacre by two senior student (“Columbine Highschool massacre”, 2010) and an intense brawl between students involving gangs during a football match (Slater, 1999) in 1999, raised awareness in the...
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...In recent decades there has been a growing concern among researchers, parents, and the public in general that violent interactive media may incite violence in teens and young adults. Particularly, it has been suggested that violent video games may condition a person to commit atrocities. It's not unreasonable to suspect a correlation between the exposure to violent media and the eventual enactment of violent crime; however, much consideration of variables such as mental illness, physical and mental abuse, and any other variables that would cause an individual to have a predisposition to violence must be done if any position or perspective is to be gained on the issue. A case that has been the center of much controversy regarding video games...
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...from a survivor of the Columbine High School massacre. The account shows just how horrific school shootings really are. They have been a topic of much discussion in the past few months. School shootings are a problem because their deadlyness, their effect on academic performance, and the psychological problems that they cause. School shootings are becoming undeniably more deadly. In the last 20 years, a fairly steady amount of school shootings have been occurring each year however, the casualty count is what is rising. So far in 2018, 32 people have been shot and killed in school shootings and 67 people have been injured. (edweek) That number has already surpassed the 14 deaths and 41 injuries in all of 2017. (my list) School shootings are not just a problem for their victims, they are also a problem for the survivors. Can you imagine having to come back to a...
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...Bullying can come in various forms and it can happen to both children and adults. There is a high likelihood that most adults and children each have stories to share which relates to each of their personal experiences either of bullying, or victimization, or witnessing acts of aggression toward others. As perennial as it can get, becoming a victim of bullies has often received the notion of being viewed as a normal part of growing up, or as some have put it, a rite of passage for children and adolescents. In the late 1970s, perspectives began to change as this outlook was looked into by the different researches. It sheds new light on the damaging effects on youths’ growth and development with respect to bullying and victimization. An increase in the awareness of bullying and victimization as well as how it resulted to be a widespread societal problem has been the initial outcome of the innovative research which has encouraged other research on this phenomenon. The beginnings of research on this social issue have been primarily conducted in Sweden and other Scandinavian countries for a number of years. As the research has been shared with other experts the world over, it resulted to the spawning of the exploration on this topic and has reached other countries, including Japan, England, Netherlands, Australia, Canada, and the United States. These countries have shown interest in the study of bullying and victimization and have begun research as early as the late 1980s. What...
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