The Violence Project is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center located in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and dedicated to data-driven violence prevention.
The Violence Project was founded in 2017 by psychologist Jillian Peterson and sociologist James Densley. Jillian Peterson, PhD, is a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Hamline University. She has led large-scale research studies on mental illness and crime, school shootings, and mass violence. James Densley, PhD, is a professor of criminal justice at Metropolitan State University, which is part of the Minnesota State system. He is known for his international work on gangs, criminal networks, violent extremism, and policing.
The Violence Project is known worldwide for its research on mass shootings, funded by the National Institute of Justice. The work has been featured in CNN, Fox News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and other leading media outlets.
The Violence Project has developed the most comprehensive mass shooter database. Spanning from the first modern mass shooting in 1966 through 2020, the database covers 170 mass shootings and 173 mass shooters coded on nearly 200 different variables.
Download the database for free at www.theviolenceproject.org/mass-shooter-database.
The Off-Ramp Project was initially designed to be a hub of information, training, and resources for anyone who has been impacted by a mass shooting or is interested in preventing the next one. Despite the original focus, Off-Ramp’s core tenets are applicable to understanding violence as a whole and to all forms of holistic violence prevention.