A fourteen-year-old guns down a prayer circle at school. Two boys, aged eleven and thirteen, massacre their classmates on the playground.

Drawing on more than a hundred interviews with victims' and perpetrators' families, classmates, teachers, ministers, and police, Newman and her coauthors take us inside two of the most notorious school shootings of the late 1990s: Westside, Arkansas, and Heath, Kentucky. Using evidence gathered from eyewitness accounts, Newman finds that the roots of school violence are deeply entwined in the communities themselves. The cherished intimacy of small towns, based on deep ties that span generations, can restrain neighbours and friends from communicating about troubled kids in their midst.

As Rampage demonstrates, there are ways to intervene as these plots gather force. Newman explains how we can help potentially violent young people and break down the barriers of communication between students and adults. Working together, families, schools, and communities can take the steps necessary to prevent the tragedy of school violence.