Perceptions of School Shooters Depend on Prior Criminal Record but Not Targeted Age Group.

Individuals with a prior criminal record are viewed more negatively than those with a clean record, which is often exemplified in harsher sentencing, higher risk assessment ratings, and higher psychopathy ratings. However, what has not yet been explored is whether the age of the targeted victim population (children vs. adults) affects these perceptions. Given that school shooting incidents are a current societal issue, this study aimed to investigate whether the presence of a prior criminal record and age of the victim population affect decisions regarding school shooting offenders. Participants were exposed to school shooting vignettes describing the offender (prior criminal record vs. not) and targeted victims (children vs. adults). They were asked to determine an appropriate sentence and rate the offender's risk of future violence and psychopathy score. Violence risk ratings (measured by the Historical Clinical Risk Management-20 [HCR-20]) and psychopathy ratings (measured by the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised [PCL-R]) depended on the presence of a prior criminal record, such that those with a prior criminal record were perceived as a greater violence risk and as exhibiting more psychopathic traits than their clean-record counterparts. However, punishment severity did not depend on prior criminal record. Likewise, age group of the targeted population had no effect on participants' perceptions of school shooting offenders. These findings contribute to our knowledge of how offender- and incident-specific factors affect perceptions, which has important implications for understanding which factors affect impartiality within our criminal justice system.

Potential Health and Performance Effects of High-Level and Low-Level Blast: A Scoping Review of Two Decades of Research.

Although blast exposure has been recognized as a significant source of morbidity and mortality in military populations, our understanding of the effects of blast exposure, particularly low-level blast (LLB) exposure, on health outcomes remains limited. This scoping review provides a comprehensive, accessible review of the peer-reviewed literature that has been published on blast exposure over the past two decades, with specific emphasis on LLB. We conducted a comprehensive scoping review of the scientific literature published between January 2000 and 2019 pertaining to the effects of blast injury and/or exposure on human and animal health. A three-level review process with specific inclusion and exclusion criteria was used. A full-text review of all articles pertaining to LLB exposure was conducted and relevant study characteristics were extracted. The research team identified 3,215 blast-relevant articles, approximately half of which (55.4%) studied live humans, 16% studied animals, and the remainder were non-subjects research (e.g., literature reviews). Nearly all (99.49%) of the included studies were conducted by experts in medicine or epidemiology; approximately half of these articles were categorized into more than one medical specialty. Among the 51 articles identified as pertaining to LLB specifically, 45.1% were conducted on animals and 39.2% focused on human subjects. Animal studies of LLB predominately used shock tubes to induce various blast exposures in rats, assessed a variety of outcomes, and clearly demonstrated that LLB exposure is associated with brain injury. In contrast, the majority of LLB studies on humans were conducted among military and law enforcement personnel in training environments and had remarkable variability in the exposures and outcomes assessed. While findings suggest that there is the potential for LLB to harm human populations, findings are mixed and more research is needed. Although it is clear that more research is needed on this rapidly growing topic, this review highlights the detrimental effects of LLB on the health of both animals and humans. Future research would benefit from multidisciplinary collaboration, larger sample sizes, and standardization of terminology, exposures, and outcomes.