Ulvade School Shooter Bullied for Poverty: The Link Between Income Inequality and Bullying

Sources: Children in Poverty More Likely to Have Problems With Friendship New Data Reveal That Poor Youth are Among the Most Vulnerable to Bullying Socioeconomic Status and Bullying: A Meta-Analysis National Children’s Bureau: Poverty and Children’s personal and social relationships 70% of Criminals are from broken homes

Strain theory is not new. Economic deprivation and social isolation are acknowledged as risk factors and motives for violent crime elsewhere such as youth involvement in street gangs. Illegal unregulated unreported fishing is recognized as a motive for social tension and piracy in Somalia. But when crimes are committed sporadically by individuals instead of groups we tend to ignore the environmental stressors even though they are still salient. As I previously mentioned in income inequality predicts mass shootings, while the perpetrator is always legally and morally responsible for their violent criminal behavior certain environmental stressors are conducive to creating motives for violent criminal behavior such as poverty, social isolation and income inequality. This is not less true in the adolescent world than it is in the adult world. In fact, kids seem to abide by an even more rigid hierarchy, based on their parent’s affluence and social status, than adults, and children with parents on the lower end of the income distribution are much more likely to be socially excluded and bullied than children of parents on the higher end of the income distribution. According to the National Children’s Bureau of the UK, children who have experienced poverty are three times as likely as children who have never experienced poverty to fall out with their friends. Children living in poverty are also twice as likely to report being bullied and four times as likely to fight with other children or bully others. Similarly, a Health Behavior in School-Age Children (HBSC) survey of children age 11 to 15 years of age in Europe and North America found that the parents’ wealth, occupation and education level is the best predictor of bullying in school: two-fifths (40%) of teens from poor families are negatively impacted by bullying compared to only a quarter (25%) of teens from wealthy families. 22 previous studies have found a positive association between low socioeconomic status (SES) and victimization as well as a negative association between high socioeconomic status (SES) and victimization. Both victims and bully-victims were of low socioeconomic status.

In addition to being bullied for being poorer than his peers, Salvador Ramos also came from a broken home and had a hostile relationship with both parents and his grandmother (who he shot in the face). His parents had split and he was living with his mother and her boyfriend shortly before being kicked out over an argument and moving in with his grandmother. While living in a broken home did not cause Ramos to commit mass murder (his choice was his own free will) it is yet another environmental stressor that probably broke his weak resolve and motivated his killing spree by making him feel he had nothing left to lose. Being reared in a broken home not only motivates juvenile delinquency but criminality in later adulthood.