SCHOOL SHOOTINGS - failures of welfare society

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SCHOOL SHOOTINGS- failures of welfare society

• Paper in ESA RN 30 Midterm Conference, Estonia
  8-11.1. 2009
• Vesa Puuronen
• University of Kuopio

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School shootings - failures of welfare society

• Contents
• Events
• Explanations
• - psychological factors
• - social and cultural factores
• Conclusions

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School shootings - failures of welfare society

• Events
• Jokela school shooting
• Wednesday 7.11. 2007
• - 18 years old High school student killed 9
  people by shooting
• - 6 studends, principal, school nurse, and
  himself
• - tried to burn the school
• - Http//www.iltasanomat.fi/videot/uutiset/1452527
  
• Kauhajoki school shooting
• Tuesday 23.9 2008
• - 22 years old student of polytechnic killed 11
  people
• - 9 students, one teacher and himself
• - managed to damage school building by setting it
  in a fire

20.12.2011
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School shootings - failures of welfare society

• Other incidents
• Rauma school shooting
• - 28.1. 1989
• - a 14 years old boy shoot two of his classmates
  in Rauma, his intention was to kill also a third
  boy but he missed
• - in addition about 5 students have been stabbed
  to death in Finnish schools
• - more than 300 threads against schools after
  Kauhajoki and Jokela incidents in Finland

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School shootings - failures of welfare society

• - After Kauhajoki and Jokela events there has
  been a lively discussion in the media and also
  amongst common people and experts about the
  reasons of these
• - What have been the motives of the killers?
• - What do the reasons, motives and the acts tell
  about Finnish society and Finnish (young) people
• Explanations
• When trying to explain the action of people, in
  principal two general starting points can be
  applied either
• a) it can be explained by reasons, factors
  related to the actor (a young people her/himself)
  
• or
• b) it can be explained by referring to the the
  social and cultural factors

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School shootings - failures of welfare society

• 1) psychological factors related to actor
  her/himself
• - personality (disorders)
• - emotional disorders, self-reported hate
  (towards fellow students, society, humankind)
• - life history
• - problems in childhood family, alcohol, drugs,
  violence
• - death of parents, siblings, other accidents or
  tragedies
• - problems in youth bullying in school,
  loneliness, own alcoholism, drug use

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School shootings - failures of welfare society

• - shooters have some common psychological
  features
• - hate
• - victimization due to bullying
• - all Finnish school shooters have been victims
  of bullying, as well as more than 70 per cent of
  US school shooters
• - bullying has generated a strong hate and
  distrust towards adults (who have nor interfered,
  both parents, teachers and other authorities),
  fellow students who have been perpetrators or
  whole human kind
• bullying ----gt hate (and distrust)

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School shootings - failures of welfare society

• 2) Social and cultural factors (social and
  cultural environment)
• Social characteristics and background of Jokela
  and Kauhajoki shooters
• - students
• - average or above average school attainment
• - middle class families
• Auvinen parents and one brother
• Saari parents divorced, lived with mother,
  stepfather and (step)sisters and (step)brothers
• - male
• - Auvinen had no real life friends before
  shooting, but had earlier some friends, had
  friends or acquaintances in Internet)
• - Saari had real life friends (he shot one of
  them), and participated in Internet communities

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School shootings - failures of welfare society
Life histories of shooters
shooting
bullying
birth
school
early youth
childhood
youth
7y
10y
18y
15y
22y
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School shootings - failures of welfare society

• 2a) factors which generate and obviously favour
  or are indifferent towards school bullying
• - institutionalised bullying in TV (for example
  TV programmes like Weakest link, Big Brother,
  Idols, Survivor)
• - teachers inability to recognise, interfere and
  stop bullying, in most cases teachers have been
  unaware or refused to believe or to take
  seriously the reports about bullying in their
  schools
• - newest research tell that in average 8 per cent
  of the 8th and 9th grade pupils are bullied at
  least once a week (6 per cent of girls, 10 per
  cent of boys)

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School shootings - failures of welfare society

• 2b) - inadequate ability of health care system to
  recognise and rehabilitate mental problems of
  students
• - lack of resources
• - lack of knowledge and qualifications of health
  care experts and police, lack of use of previous
  knowledge about school shootings and shooters
  (profiling and prevention)
• 2c) role of family and parents
• - in general the responsibility of parents for
  the upbringing of their children has been claimed
  to be vague
• - parenthood has been vanishing in the new
  cultural situation

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School shootings - failures of welfare society

• - the role and functions of family has changed,
  at the moment it is a place where only
  consumption takes place (no production, no
  transfer of qualifications) and even consumption
  is located more and more outside of familyhomes
• - relationship between parents and their children
  has changed
• - internet is a forum where children spend their
  time, meet their friends etc.
• - most parents are unable and unwilling to
  control the internet usage of children

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School shootings - failures of welfare society

• 2d) visibility/fame as a principal goal of young
  people
• - in the modern society visibility in media, fame
  seem to become essential value for young people
• - programmes like Idols, Big Brother, other
  reality TV programmes distort the sense of
  reality and basic human values
• - if the most important goal of life is to become
  famous some people might be willing to do
  anything to become famous

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School shootings - failures of welfare society

• 2e) extended suicide
• - altruistic suicide, to kill oneself (and
  others) to save a community, compare suicide
  terrorists, bombers
• - the killer will be rewarded after the death,
  reward is fame
• - egoistic suicide people kill themselves for
  their individual interest. occurs in societies
  where social bonds are weak with a low level of
  social integration due to emphasis put onto
  individual rights, welfare and interests
• - society has norms and values to think of
  themselves, causing them to be more individual
  rather than coming together as a society
• - other people of the society see it as
  acceptable that a person has killed themselves
  due to failure or unhappiness,
• - this type of suicide is caused by a low amount
  of social integration and could lead to a high
  suicide rate in that society

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School shootings - failures of welfare society

• 2f) ideology - terrorism
• - both Auvinen and Saari expressed their motives
  in the messages, which they left behind
• - two types of messages
• 1) warnings and threats
• 2) written messages
• - what was the ideology of Auvinen?
• There are three kinds of human personality types
  in this world
• 1) individualistic human (3 of the world
  population)
• 2) manipulative human (3 of the world
  population)
• 3) mass human (94 of the world population)
• 1 2 type of personalities are intelligent,
  creative and self-aware. They have chosen bit
  different paths paths. 3 type of personalities
  are less intelligent and less creative,
  weak-minded people controlled by 2 type of
  personalities. The percentages are only
  estimations though but are based on Gaussian
  distribution and history of human race and how
  humans have organized into societies.

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School shootings - failures of welfare society

• Total War Against Humanity
• Hate, Im so full of it and I love it. That is one
  thing I really love. Some time ago, I used to
  believe in humanity and I wanted to live a long
  and happy life... but then I woke up. I started
  to think deeper and realized things. But it was
  not easy to become existential... knowing as much
  as I know has made me unhappy, frustrated and
  angry. I just cant be happy in the society or
  the reality I live. Due to long process of
  existential thinking, observing the society I
  live and some other things happened in my life...
  I have come to the point where I feel nothing but
  hate against humanity and human race. Life is
  just a meaningless coincidence... result of long
  process of evolution and many several factors,
  causes and effects. However, life is also
  something that an individual wants and determines
  it to be. And I'm the dictator and god of my own
  life. And me, I have chosen my way. I am prepared
  to fight and die for my cause. I, as a natural
  selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit,
  disgraces of human race and failures of natural
  selection.

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School shootings - failures of welfare society

• - ideological starting points
• - übermensch, superman, pseudoscientific ideas
  about connection between inherited intelligence
  and wealth of the nations, social Darwinism,
  Nazism
• - division of human kind in groups which are
  unequal, different forms of racism
• - hate towards humanity
• - individual belief in own superiority, higher
  goals, not just personal revenge

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School shootings - failures of welfare society

• - Auvinen did not develope his world view or
  lived in isolation
• - teachers, class mates and mother has told that
  he did not hide his ideas
• - He revealed his murder plans only immediately
  before shooting began in Internet
• - Auvinen's teacher of history considered his
  thoughts special
• - school mates told that they thought that
  Auvinen was just joking
• - many people, including his mother knew his
  thoughts
• - nobody was worried enough, willing or able to
  interfere

20.12.2011
Vesa Puuronen Kuopion yliopisto
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School shootings - failures of welfare society

• 2g) Internet-community
• - In Internet many communities (discussion
  groups) and pages which admire school shootings
  or at least are not critical to them (Wikipedia,
  Irc-galleria) (http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columb
  ine_High_School_massacre)
• - detailed information e.g. about Columbine
  school shooting and shooters
• - hate communities (irc-galleria)
• - community strengthen and encourages hate
  against society, human kind and also killing
• - it gives model, which made it possible for
  Auvinen and Saari to simulate the action before
  real action, timing, equipment, messages, photos,
  imitation
• - Auvinen was an example for Saari

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School shootings - failures of welfare society

• 2h) erosion of communities and responsibility in
  Finnish welfare society
• - society has taken responsibility of education,
  upbringing
• - but because resources are lacking there are
  caps in welfare systems
• - communities (families, schools, health care
  systems) are not able to recognise and interfere
• - especially in high schools sense of community,
  solidarity has vanished due to classless system
• - even though Finnish educational system performs
  well in PISA evaluations the pupils/students do
  not feel well in the schools
• - youth work, especially net youth work is in
  principal equiped and prepared to face the
  problems created by net communities

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School shootings - failures of welfare society

• 2i) People's mentality
• - The Times (8.11.2007) states that Finnish youth
  compensate lacking real life human contacts by
  mobile phones and surfing in net
• - Finns in general are chronically depressed
  people
• - Finns living in a dark country are inclined to
  commit suicide
• - the suicide mortality rates in Finland are high
  in international comparision
• - the violent criminality (murders, homicides) is
  more frequent in Finland than in any other
  European county

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School shootings - failures of welfare society
Life histories of shooters
school
family home
internet communities
shooting
birth
bullying
early youth
childhood
youth
7y
10y
18y
15y
22y
hate, encouragement, trust, decision
happiness, security, trust
insecurity, distrust, hate
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Thanks, comments

• Paper in ESA RN 30 Midterm Conference, Estonia
  8-11.1. 2009
• Vesa Puuronen
• University of Kuopio