Research/Field Work

Why are so many murders unsolved? What if serial killers aren’t simply “crazy”? How can good suburban dads snap? What if it takes a village to raise a murderer? 

The Social Homicide Project (SHOP) is a multi-phase research project with a dynamic team of individuals from interdisciplinary backgrounds. The SHOP involves multiple interrelated articles, all of which are broadly anchored in a desire to develop a cohesive social theory for understanding extreme criminal violence. 

The first phase involved a literature review of major sociological and criminological journals and texts exploring the boundaries of criminology as an independent field.

The second, ongoing, phase involves a more specific investigation into the social forces that promote and constrain homicide. At present, our team is examining demographic and structural variables related to unsolved homicides (cold cases), serial homicide, and family annihilators.