Triple Entitlement and Homicidal Anger: An Exploration of the Intersectional Identities of American Mass Murderers
Abstract
In the Unites States, middle-class Caucasian heterosexual males in their teenage years and in middle age commit mass murder, the killing of at least three victims during a single episode at one or more closely related locations, in numbers disproportionately high relative to their share of the population. Utilizing an intersectional theoretical approach, this article investigates the convergences of (1) white entitlement, (2) middle-class instability and downward mobility in the postindustrial economy, and (3) heterosexual masculinity and its relationship to violence. Such analysis concludes that, among many mass killers, the triple privileges of white heterosexual masculinity which make subsequent life course losses more unexpected and thus more painfully shameful ultimately buckle under the failures of downward mobility and result in a final cumulative act of violence to stave off subordinated masculinity.
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Biographies
Eric Madfis, PhD, is an assistant professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Washington, Tacoma, where his research focuses on youth violence, criminological theory, and the expansion of punitive discipline and criminalization in educational institutions. His work has been published in American Behavioral Scientist, Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, Homicide Studies, The Social Science Journal, and Critical Criminology. He is currently in the process of completing a book that explores perceptions of and reactions to threats of rampage shootings in American public schools.
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