Welcome to Crawl Space.

I'm Tim here today with Lance Lance. How are you today it's a fantastic day Tim. I'm doing great. I hope everyone out there is doing great. How are you doing today? I am doing great as well. Thanks a lot for asking this episode today is a wonderful conversation with a very, very smart person. Her name is Dr. Jillian Peterson. She's a forensic psychologist, a violence researcher and a co-founder and an author, but the co-founder of the violence project right the

violence project is also a book called the violence project how to stop a mass shooting epidemic. It was written by her Jillian Peterson and her partner James densley and that's how we heard about this. What they've done is created a comprehensive database of all mass public shootings from the year 1966 to 2020 and it's coded on nearly 200 variables life history variables, which include like mental health, trauma, interest in past shootings and situational triggers.

So make sure to check out the violence project at the violence project dot org and you can get the book. It's called violence project how to stop a mass shooting epidemic. It's incredibly interesting information and I know that you're going to love this conversation and Tim. We're excited to say that we are going to crime con this year. So first crime con that we've been to in about a hundred years. It's in Las Vegas. It is at the end of April the 29th, the 30th and the first and if you're waiting on something to convince you to go to crime con. If you hadn't pulled the trigger

on those standard badges yet, you can use promo code crawl space for 10% off those standard badges. And you can see us there on podcast row with all the other amazingly beautiful podcasters.

I can't wait Lance. It is going to be a blast. It's probably going to be just like the hangover. Well, you can expect to see me in my Elvis attire on the strip doing my best impersonation. Well, thank you very much, Lance.

I thank you to our listeners. Please follow us on Twitter. We're at crawl space pod and you can use code crawl space and get 10% off your pass.

Your standard badge to crime con at crimecon.com. So check that out. We really hope to see you there and enjoy this interview with a fantastically smart person.

Doctor Jillian Peterson.

Welcome to the podcast, Jillian Peterson of the violence project. How are you today? I'm doing well. How are you?

We're doing so well. We had to postpone this interview because of COVID related issues, but we got it on track. And it actually was a good thing because it gave us a little bit more time to interpret and ingest all of the work that you folks do at the violence project.

And Tim and I were talking before you hopped on. First of all, I brought my pencil sharpener because I'm going to be taking a lot of notes and I need to make sure my pencil is at the ready.

And I just don't even know where to start with you. I don't know where to start with what you do to articulate how important this is. So introduce yourself and let people know where you started.

Sure. So I am Jillian Peterson. I am a psychologist by training. I am a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Hamlin University and then co president of the violence project, which is now a nonpartisan nonprofit research center.

That's focused on reducing violence with data and research, incredible. And who else is part of the team that makes up the violence project.

Yeah, my collaborator and co president is Dr. James Denzley, who is a sociologist and a professor at Metropolitan State University. And then we have a lot of different students and interns and volunteers that kind of help us analyze data, build databases, create visuals, turn data into policy.

And the website is the violenceproject.org and on that website, you can go to many different facets like the mass shooter database, the book, the amazing book and the off ramp project and we'll get to all of these in a little bit.

But what was the first instance in your professional career or just even in your personal life where you looked at the epidemic of mass shootings and you decided that the logical approach would be through collecting data and approaching it that way.

And sort of taking it by the horns in that end, instead of banning guns, like instead of doing the typical like tropey things.

Yeah, I started out my career before I was an academic, I started as an investigator and I worked for the New York City Capitol Defender's office as public affairs office that worked on death penalty cases in New York City.

And I was like 22 to what 26 when I was doing it and spent all my time on Rikers Island, talking to men who were facing the death penalty.

And it was my job to put together their life history, we called them biopsychosocial developmental life histories that kind of mapped out how this person got to the point of committing murder.

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