Amitology as a School Shooting Prevention Method: Potential Assessment

The subject of the research is the organization of prevention of school shootings and other forms of deviant behavior in the educational environment. The approaches to understanding the nature and legal status of school shootings were analyzed. The necessity of systematic preventive work in the educational environment at various levels – from ideological to individual, concerning potential school shooters – was substantiated. The author's perspective on the existing concept of preventive work was formulated; its main directions are aimed at explaining to young people the destructive nature of various types of deviant behavior, forming an understanding of the inevitability of punishment for committing such actions, and informing about the tightening of criminal liability measures. There was also made an attempt to investigate the hypothesis that the targeted development of social skills and the creation of a cohesive atmosphere in a group can reduce the risks of social exclusion and aggressive behavior among students. The methodological basis of the study, along with a set of general scientific methods (observation, comparison, analysis, synthesis, generalization, deduction), also included the method of comparative legal research, as well as developments in the field of integralism. The research was conducted using materials from specialized criminological literature and the socio-philosophical works of one of the founders of modern sociology, P.A. Sorokin. The scientific article is the first to assess the applicability of P.A. Sorokin's amitology to the prevention of unlawful behavior among youth, particularly school shootings. In doing so, the thesis is substantiated that the education system possesses a number of significant advantages over family, friends, and the church as an environment for forming a stable capacity for constructive altruism. Based on the research findings, it was concluded that P.A. Sorokin's developments in the field of amitology hold significant potential for organizing the prevention of various forms of deviant behavior among youth. In particular, the concept of "altruistic love" as a foundation for social harmony and solidarity offers an alternative to repressive and purely rational approaches to preventing various forms of deviant behavior in the educational environment.

school shooting, Columbine, terrorism, deviant behavior, youth, education, prevention, altruism, integralism, amitology