Dangerous Shame

In recent years there have been 17 incidents of school killings in the United States, resulting in 189 deaths, 280 injuries, and 11 suicides. The murder of school children is a growing social problem, as the recent tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut showed. Yet relatively little is known about the motives of those who kill children.

Criminologist Neil Websdale, who studied over 200 perpetrators who killed their own partners and children, provides one explanation. Using detailed materials provided by the Domestic Violence Fatality Review movement (a national group of volunteers which investigates incidents of domestic violence, interviewing police, surviving family members, and neighbors), Websdale found that a majority of the killings occurred in rages by men with a history of aggression. For a substantial minority of the killers, who were more middle class, there was no prior history of violence, and these murders were often carefully premeditated.

Websdale shows that rage is often a way of hiding shame and humiliation. Losing a job, for example, can lead to feelings of unbearable humiliation. His findings strongly support the thesis that secret shame is an important, underappreciated cause of violence—including violence against children.