Adolescent attacks on schools: a disease or a social phenomenon?

On November 24 Elena Dozortseva (Doctor of Psychology, Professor, Head of the Department of Legal Psychology, Moscow State Pedagogical University, Head of the Laboratory of Child and Adolescence Psychology, Serbsky Scientific Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry) took part in the "Culture matters" research seminar with the report "Adolescent attacks on schools: a disease or a social phenomenon?".

In recent years, Russia has been concerned about new manifestations of acute adolescent aggression: armed attacks on schools. However, this phenomenon is not original; teenagers acted on the model of the massacre of children and teachers at the American Columbine School in 1999. Why did such imitation arise? A forensic psychological and psychiatric examination showed that the majority of adolescents who committed or prepared an attack on schools have mental disorders.