TITLE:
How to Prevent School Shootings and Other Mass Homicides
AUTHORS:
Keith Burgess-Jackson
KEYWORDS:
School Shootings, Mass Homicides, Massacres, Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), Crime, Punishment, Crime Prevention, Rehabilitation, Incapacitation, Deterrence, Torture, Imprisonment, Hard Labor, Theism
JOURNAL NAME:
Beijing Law Review,
Vol.10 No.5,
December
31,
2019
ABSTRACT: Mass homicides, of which school shootings are a species, are all too common. What makes them philosophically interesting is that the usual punishments for such crimes are ineffective. How does one deter a person who is intent on killing himself or herself upon completion of the massacre? After clarifying the concepts of prevention, deterrence, and punishment, I describe various modes of punishment. If we are serious about preventing mass homicides, we must not rule out any mode of punishment a priori. I suggest several punishments, such as torture and imprisonment with hard labor, that may deter prospective mass murderers. The aim is to find a punishment that the prospective mass murderer fears more than death. I also recommend the inculcation of theism (understood as belief in a retributive god) as a means of deterring mass homicides.