Dorothy Espelage, professor of Educational Psychology, is part of a national violence-prevention research group that is calling for a renewed nationwide effort to address mass shootings. The statement from the Interdisciplinary Group on Preventing School and Community Violence, made up of researchers from across the country, including Espelage, addresses the need for more mental health services and improved threat assessment.

Download the December 2012 Connecticut School Shooting Position Statement released by the Interdisciplinary Group on Preventing School and Community Violence.

December 20, 2012, NEWS-GAZETTE.COM, CHAMPAIGN, Ill., Julie Wurth—As it did after the 2006 Virginia Tech shooting, a national violence-prevention research group — including a University of Illinois professor — is calling for a renewed nationwide effort to address mass shootings.

The statement from the Interdisciplinary Group on Preventing School and Community Violence, made up of university researchers from across the country, addresses the need for more mental health services and improved threat assessment, beefs up the 2006 language on gun control and discusses how media violence leads to aggressive behavior.

"This group wanted to make sure we were very explicit this time around, that there has to be a plan at the national level to address mental health access, to address gun control," to address the impact of violent media on certain individuals and to "think really seriously about threat assessment," said University of Illinois educational psychology Professor Dorothy Espelage, one of nine co-authors of the "Connecticut School Shooting Position Statement."

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