Mass murders in educational institutions: determinants and organisation of prevention

Introduction. Over the past few years, Russian educational institutions have recorded a dynamically developing trend of committing mass murders, the victims of which are students, teachers, and law enforcement officers trying to neutralise the perpetrator (usually a schooler or student of an educational institution that is the scene of the crime). Modern realities are such that mass murders in educational institutions are committed almost annually. This relatively new “trend” of juvenile delinquency has been dubbed “schoolshooting” or “Columbine” in reference to the events that took place in 1999 at the American school of the same name. However, since then, this phenomenon has become popularised among teenagers, reaching far beyond the borders of the United States of America, forming an independent global criminal phenomenon. Methods. The methodological basis of the study is a comparative analysis, study and synthesis of literature, which are reflected directly in achieving the stated research goal and solving the tasks set, namely in the synthesis of structural elements of activities aimed at identifying and suppressing schoolshooting, analysing the organisation of prevention, as well as establishing structural links between the elements of the schoolshooting prevention system. The authors applied an activity-based methodological approach, and general scientific research methods (system-structural analysis, dialectical cognition method) were also used. Results. Juvenile delinquency has always attracted the attention of scientists, as it is characterised by specific features, largely determined by the personality of a juvenile offender. Based on the studied cases of school shootings in the Russian Federation, it is possible to identify some psychological and criminal aspects of the personality of the “schoolshooter” in order to determine preventive measures and prevent schoolshooting as a criminal phenomenon.