Purpose

The purpose of this study is to explore the current literature which assesses the incidence of completed or attempted mass shooting events in which a female party acted either alone or as an accomplice; explore the involvement of women in the planning or execution of acts of terrorism; evaluate the pathology of women involved in these acts of extreme violence; highlight any gender-specific pathological and environmental risk factors associated with the planning or completion of the mass shooting, spree killing or terrorist attack events.

Design/methodology/approach

Using the 27-item preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses guidelines (Moher et al., 2009), the present systematic review explored peer-reviewed literature published between 1908 and September 2020 using six databases [SalfordUniversityJournals@Ovid; Journals@Ovid Full Text; APA PsycArticles Full Text; APA PsycExtra; APA PsycInfo; Ovid MEDLINE(R)], in addition to conducting a grey literature search on “Google Scholar” using specific search terms, predetermined following use of the patient/population, intervention, comparison framework.

Findings

Findings of the review did identify several distinguishing characteristics exclusive to women allied to terror organisations; including lower levels of extremism and religious ideology, lower age of radicalisation, higher levels of education than currently hypothesized and the significance of relational affiliation with extremist causes. Despite the synthesis of descriptive characterises being achieved, data relating to female mass shooters was scant and relied upon case study review and discussion. As a result, identification of precipitating psychopathological and environmental triggers was difficult, however, there does appear to be a higher proportion of female mass shooters targeting current or previous places of employment.

Research limitations/implications

One of the potential limitations of this review is that some relevant studies were not identified during the search. The risk of this was minimised as much as possible by screening the reference section of relevant reviews and theoretical papers (which were identified in the search of the databases) for any potentially relevant studies that may have been missed. In addition, numerous permutations of the search criteria that were entered into the databases were also entered into “GoogleScholar”.

Practical implications

Current literature has highlighted that the age of radicalisation among women across both jihadi-inspired, right-wing and far-left extremist organisations are decreasing, with many new recruits being born after 1990 (Jacques and Taylor, 2012). This finding aids in identifying a target of entry to minimise the chance of radicalisation, through targeted educational training and anti-radicalisation programmes intervening in at risk groups at the correct time. However, further exploration will be necessary to identify specific risk factors prior to radicalisation in such groups.

Originality/value

There appears to be a large gap in literature quantitively assessing the rates of psychopathological variables among this demographic. When narrowing the lens further onto female mass shooters, empirical literature investigating even characteristic variables continues to evade the academic remit. Arguably this obstruction to the current understanding of female perpetrated violence, both in an organised terror and a mass shooter capacity, limits the ability to meaningfully evaluate whether previous models assessing risk among mass shooters is valid across genders.

中文翻译：

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探索女性参与恐怖主义行为和大规模枪击事件：系统评价

目的

本研究的目的是探索当前的文献，这些文献评估了女性一方单独或作为共犯行事的已完成或未遂大规模枪击事件的发生率；探索妇女参与策划或执行恐怖主义行为的情况；评估参与这些极端暴力行为的妇女的病理状况；强调与计划或完成大规模枪击、疯狂杀戮或恐怖袭击事件相关的任何性别特定的病理和环境风险因素。

设计/方法/方法

使用系统评价和荟萃分析指南的 27 项首选报告项目（Moher等人，2009 年），本系统评价使用六个数据库 [SalfordUniversityJournals@Ovid; Journals@Ovid 全文；APA PsycArticles 全文；APA PsycExtra；APA 心理信息；Ovid MEDLINE(R)]，除了使用特定搜索词对“Google Scholar”进行灰色文献搜索之外，还预先确定了对患者/人群的使用、干预、比较框架。

发现

审查结果确实确定了与恐怖组织结盟的女性独有的几个显着特征；包括较低的极端主义和宗教意识形态、较低的激进化年龄、比目前假设的更高的教育水平以及与极端主义原因的关系从属关系的重要性。尽管实现了描述性特征的综合，但与女性大规模射手相关的数据很少，并且依赖于案例研究审查和讨论。因此，很难确定诱发的精神病理学和环境诱因，但是，针对当前或以前的工作地点的女性大规模射击者的比例似乎更高。

研究限制/影响

本综述的潜在局限性之一是在检索过程中未确定一些相关研究。通过筛选相关评论和理论论文（在数据库搜索中确定）的参考部分，寻找可能遗漏的任何潜在相关研究，尽可能降低这种风险。此外，输入数据库的搜索条件的众多排列也输入到“GoogleScholar”中。

实际影响

目前的文献强调，受圣战启发的、右翼和极左极端主义组织的女性激进化年龄正在下降，许多新兵是在 1990 年之后出生的（雅克和泰勒，2012 年）。这一发现有助于确定进入目标，通过有针对性的教育培训和反激进计划在正确的时间干预高危人群，从而最大限度地减少激进化的机会。然而，在这些群体激进化之前，需要进一步探索以确定特定的风险因素。

原创性/价值

在定量评估该人群中精神病理学变量发生率的文献中似乎存在很大差距。当将镜头进一步缩小到女性大规模射手时，研究甚至特征变量的实证文献继续逃避学术职权范围。可以说，这种对当前对女性暴力行为的理解的障碍，无论是在有组织的恐怖活动还是大规模射击能力中，都限制了有意义地评估先前评估大规模射击者风险的模型是否适用于不同性别的能力。