Journalists do a poor job of correctly identifying copycat crime and social science hasn’t helped.

In the past mass shootings have often been referred to as ‘copycat’ crimes in media reports. But are these crimes truly triggered by earlier events? Ray Surette writes that identifying copycat crimes has long been problematic because many independent crimes that are similar are often identified as ‘copycat’. Using a new measure, he finds that in a sample of purported copycat crimes, less than 40 percent could actually be described as true copycat crimes. He argues that better knowledge of trends in copycat crimes through such new measures could help decision making in criminal justice policy.