Articles of the month: Oct 2020

There is no empirical evidence to link autism and terrorism, in the general population. However, when terrorist acts are planned or executed by individuals with autism, it is important to develop an understanding of the individual’s autistic functioning and how it may contextualise factors that push them towards terrorism and aspects of terrorism that may pull them in, in order to manage and reduce risk. The role of autism in resilience also needs to be considered in order to capitalise on natural and individually meaningful sources of motivation and protection. This paper explores how different features of autism may contextualise risk and resilience and the implications for support and diversion approaches. Caution is encouraged against drawing conclusions of causality and over-simplification of autism-terrorism links, especially in individuals with co-existing mental health problems and psychosocial adversities. The need for highly individualised formulations that take into account the heterogeneity of autism and how it is functionally expressed, as well as the complexity of terrorism, is strongly advocated. Finally, the limitations in the empirical evidence and research in the field of autism and terrorism are highlighted.

There is a paucity of research comparing gang members and domestic extremists and extant studies find few explicit linkages. Despite this, there remains a great deal of interest in possible similarities between these criminal groups. Driving this interest is the possibility of adapting policies and practices aimed at preventing entry into criminal groups. A critical first step to determining compatibility is to examine the circumstances of the individuals who enter these organizations and better describe the entry processes. This study provides a unique comparison of entry into these groups by drawing on four broad empirically derived mechanisms of group entry using forty-five in-person interviews of U.S. gang members and thirty-eight life history narratives of individuals who radicalized in the United States. Our results reveal that each of the four conceptual categories appeared to influence initial involvement; however, no single mechanism described involvement in criminal groups or differentiated involvement across the gangs and extremist groups.

This study analyzes the effects of conspiracy beliefs on violent extremist intentions. More specifically, we investigate whether the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and violent extremism depends upon individual characteristics such as varying levels of self-efficacy, self-control, and law-relevant morality. Variable interactions examine where conspiracy beliefs exert strong effects on violent extremist intentions. The analysis is based on a German nationally representative survey (N = 1502). To our knowledge, it is the first and only nationally representative survey carried out in violent extremism research.

Our results confirm that a stronger conspiracy mentality leads to increased violent extremist intentions. However, this relationship is contingent on several individual differences. The effects are much stronger for individuals exhibiting lower self-control, holding a weaker law-relevant morality, and scoring higher in self-efficacy. Conversely, when stronger conspiracy beliefs are held in combination with high self-control and a strong law-relevant morality, violent extremist intentions are lower. Such individual features thus constitute interactive protective factors for violent extremism. These results have important implications for practice in the area of violent extremism risk assessment and management. Conceptually, the results demonstrate the need to further elaborate the conditional effects of certain risk as well as protective factors for violent extremism.

There is no empirical evidence to suggest that terrorism is driven by mental illness in the majority of cases. However, when terrorist acts are planned or executed by individuals with mental disorder, possible functional links between the two need to be explored in order to delineate risk and inform approaches to risk management and reduction. This paper explores such functional links, their complexities and implications for clinical interventions, with a focus on psychosis, PTSD and addictions. The challenges of establishing the precise role of mental disorder, especially where there is co-morbidity and a range of complex interacting symptoms, are explored. Finally, the limitations of the existing research in the field of mental disorder and terrorism, and the challenges of extrapolating from such research to practice, are addressed.

Community perspectives of repentant terrorist combatants and militants alongside the trust accorded reintegration programmes are important for successful reintegration. This review attempt to fill a significant gap through the synthesis of evidence on community perspectives of interventions adopted to foster reintegration of former terrorist combatants and militants in Nigeria. Six databases including the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, Applied Social Science Index and Abstracts, Web of Science, Scopus, Proquest and EBsco were searched. Eighteen studies met the inclusion criteria. Informed by the principles of thematic analysis and conceptual framework of synthesis, five themes emerged: (1) Design of reintegration programmes devoid of community consultation; (2) Scepticism towards the sincerity behind monetising rehabilitation and reintegration programmes; (3) Resistance towards reintegration due to perceived favourable incentives provided to repentant combatants; (4) Lack of confidence in the genuine repentance of former repentant combatants; and (5) Lack of confidence in government’s reintegration programme. The review recommends randomised controlled trials which incorporate context-specific community-centred interventions to encourage successful reintegration.