Emily Corner

A False Dichotomy? Mental Illness and Lone-Actor Terrorism

We test whether significant differences in mental illness exist in a matched sample of lone- and group-based terrorists. We then test whether there are distinct behavioral differences between lone-actor terrorists with and without mental illness. We then stratify our sample across a range of diagnoses and again test whether significant differences exist. We conduct a series of bivariate, multivariate, and multinomial statistical tests using a unique dataset of 119 lone-actor terrorists and a matched sample of group-based terrorists. The odds of a lone-actor terrorist having a mental illness is 13.49 times higher than the odds of a group actor having a mental illness. Lone actors who were mentally ill were 18.07 times more likely to have a spouse or partner who was involved in a wider movement than those without a history of mental illness. Those with a mental illness were more likely to have a proximate upcoming life change, more likely to have been a recent victim of prejudice, and experienced proximate and chronic stress. The results identify behaviors and traits that security agencies can utilize to monitor and prevent lone-actor terrorism events. The correlated behaviors provide an image of how risk can crystalize within the individual offender and that our understanding of lone-actor terrorism should be multivariate in nature.

Mental Health Disorders and the Terrorist: A Research Note Probing Selection Effects and Disorder Prevalence

ABSTRACT Recent research on lone-actor terrorism has found a high prevalence of mental health disorders among these offenders. This research note addresses two shortcomings in these existing studies. First, it investigates whether selection effects are present in the selection process of terrorist recruits. Second, it builds on the argument that mental health problems and terrorist behavior should not be treated as a yes/no dichotomy. Descriptive results of mental health disorders are outlined utilizing a number of unique datasets.

Terrorist Use of the Internet by the Numbers: Quantifying Behaviors, Patterns, and Processes

Public interest and policy debates surrounding the role of the Internet in terrorist activities is increasing. Criminology has said very little on the matter. By using a unique data set of 223 convicted United Kingdom–based terrorists, this article focuses on how they used the Internet in the commission of their crimes. As most samples of terrorist offenders vary in terms of capabilities (lone-actor vs. group offenders) and criminal sophistication (improvised explosive devices vs. stabbings), we tested whether the affordances they sought from the Internet significantly differed. The results suggest that extreme-right-wing individuals, those who planned an attack (as opposed to merely providing material support), conducted a lethal attack, committed an improvised explosive device (IED) attack, committed an armed assault, acted within a cell, attempted to recruit others, and engaged in nonvirtual network activities and nonvirtual place interactions were significantly more likely to learn online compared with those who did not engage in these behaviors. Those undertaking unarmed assaults were significantly less likely to display online learning. The results also suggested that extreme-right-wing individuals who perpetrated an IED attack, associated with a wider network, attempted to recruit others, and engaged in nonvirtual network activities and nonvirtual place interactions were significantly more likely to communicate online with co-ideologues.

There and Back Again: The Study of Mental Disorder and Terrorist Involvement

For the past 40 years, researchers studied the relationship between mental disorder and terrorist involvement. The literature developed in 4 paradigms, each of which differs in terms of their empirical evidence, the specific mental disorders studied, and their conceptualizations of terrorist involvement. These paradigms have not, however, witnessed linear and incremental improvements upon 1 another. Although 1 paradigm has generally tended to dominate a temporal period, many false assumptions and incorrect interpretations of earlier work permeate into today’s discourse. This article provides a history of the study of mental disorders and the terrorist. First, we briefly outline the core fundamental principles of the first 2 paradigms, The article then outlines the core arguments produced by the seminal reviews conducted in Paradigm 3. We highlight how these findings were consistently misinterpreted in subsequent citations. We then highlight recent innovations in the study of terrorism and mental disorder since the various influential literature reviews of 1997–2005. We conclude by outlining how future research in this area may improve in the coming years by broadening our understanding of both terrorist involvement and psychopathology away from simple dichotomous thinking.

Shooting Alone: The Pre‐Attack Experiences and Behaviors of U.S. Solo Mass Murderers

This paper outlines the sociodemographic, developmental, antecedent attack, attack preparation, and commission properties of 115 mass murderers between 1990 and 2014. The results indicate that mass murderer attacks are usually the culmination of a complex mix of personal, political, and social drivers that crystalize at the same time to drive the individual down the path of violent action. We specifically focus upon areas related to prior criminal engagement, leakage, and attack location familiarity. Whether the violence comes to fruition is usually a combination of the availability and vulnerability of suitable targets that suit the heady mix of personal and political grievances and the individuals capability to engage in an attack from both a psychological and technical capability standpoint. Many individual cases share a mixture of unfortunate personal life circumstances coupled with an intensification of beliefs/grievances that later developed into the idea to engage in violence.

Lone-Actor Terrorist Target Choice.

Lone-actor terrorist attacks have risen to the forefront of the publics consciousness in the past few years. Some of these attacks were conducted against public officials. The rise of hard-to-detect, low-tech attacks may lead to more public officials being targeted. This paper explores whether different behavioral traits are apparent within a sample of lone-actor terrorists who plotted against high-value targets (including public officials) than within a sample of lone actors who plotted against members of the public. Utilizing a unique dataset of 111 lone-actor terrorists, we test a series of hypotheses related to attack capability and operational security. The results indicate that very little differentiates those who attack high-value targets from those who attack members of the public. We conclude with a series of illustrations to theorize why this may be the case. Copyright

Terrorist Decision Making in the Context of Risk, Attack Planning, and Attack Commission

ABSTRACT Terrorists from a wide array of ideological influences and organizational structures consider security and risk on a continuous and rational basis. The rationality of terrorism has been long noted of course but studies tended to focus on organizational reasoning behind the strategic turn toward violence. A more recent shift within the literature has examined rational behaviors that underpin the actual tactical commission of a terrorist offense. This article is interested in answering the following questions: What does the cost–benefit decision look like on a single operation? What does the planning process look like? How do terrorists choose between discrete targets? What emotions are felt during the planning and operational phases? What environmental cues are utilized in the decision-making process? Fortunately, much insight is available from the wider criminological literature where studies often provide offender-oriented accounts of the crime commission process. We hypothesize similar factors take place in terrorist decision making and search for evidence within a body of terrorist autobiographies.

Mental Disorders, Personality Traits, and Grievance-Fueled Targeted Violence: The Evidence Base and Implications for Research and Practice

ABSTRACT This article aims to move away from intuitive appeals that link mental disorder with violence such as terrorism, mass murder, and other targeted violence. The article synthesizes the existing evidence base regarding the relationship between mental disorders and personality traits and (a) attitudinal affinities with violent causes, and (b) a number of violent behaviors (including mass murder and terrorism). The evidence base is mixed and the research focus changed across time: from simple and unempirical assertions of causation to an almost complete rejection of their presence to a finer grained and disaggregated understanding. Empirical research examining mental disorder in crime and violence highlights that the commission of such events is a complex synthesis of psychopathology, personal circumstance, and environment. The article concludes with several suggestions regarding future research and practice.

The Rational Foraging Terrorist: Analysing the Distances Travelled to Commit Terrorist Violence

Abstract This paper applies the distance-to-crime approach to the case of Improvised Explosive Device (IED) and shooting attacks conducted by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) during the Northern Ireland conflict, 1970–1998. The aim is to (a) measure the typical ‘distance to crime’ (b) detect whether a distance-decay effect is noticeable and (c) investigate whether there is a discernible difference in the distance traveled depending upon individual offender characteristics or aspects of how the offence was committed. In particular, it highlights that many of the same dynamics that influence offender decision making within the volume crime world, also apply within the terrorism realm. Five findings stand out in particular. First, a distance decay effect is identifiable. Second, younger offenders travel significantly smaller distances. Third, complex attacks typically involve greater distances. Fourth, our results show the ability of leading decision-makers within PIRA to impact upon the day-to-day operations of the field operatives. Together the results reinforce the argument that when we focus on terrorism from a preventative angle, we should focus on their behaviors: what they do rather than remain preoccupied with concerns about who they are and/or what they might be like. Collectively the results also highlight the fact that for a finer-grained understanding of terrorist behavior we need to disaggregate on a number of levels: within the cadre of operatives, across terrorist attacks, across targets and within conflicts.

The nascent empirical literature on psychopathology and terrorism

The current status of empirical knowledge regarding the relationship between psychopathology and violent radicalization has undoubtedly improved from the initial forays into the study. Work during the 1970s and 1980s focused upon personality traits and disorders, especially three that are found within DSM cluster B: borderline, narcissistic and antisocial. Poor research designs and a lack of valid empirics ultimately undermined such arguments. Various studies supporting psychopathic and personality-level explanations were conducted in the absence of rigorous clinical diagnostic procedures. Instead, they relied upon autobiographies, biographies, secondhand case studies, media interviews and willful misreadings of actual empirical work. In the absence of rigorous clinical and empirical procedures, the reductionist view, where terrorists are characterized as suffering from some mental disorder purely on the nature of the attack behavior, ignores the highly complex neurological, psychological and sociological processes whereby actors become desensitized to violence, and subsequently suffer psychological consequences as a result of terrorist engagement. Despite these methodological problems, the appeal of such efforts remains influential within the literature beyond their zenith in the 1970s and 1980s. For example, studies continue to hypothesize that terrorists are driven by envy, an urge to punish and retaliate, and a lack of empathy. Following movements in wider psychiatric research, the study of the terrorist has also recently become more disaggregated, with empirical analyses focusing upon specific terrorist subsets (e.g., lone-actors, foreign fighters) rather than aggregate depictions (i.e., the general terrorist). Such analyses identify a mid-way point between the initial attributional studies that sought causation in psychopathology and social explanations which overlook the potential of psychopathology. Such studies have found evidence for the presence of mental and personality disorders with various degrees of methodological sophistication. Some simply report aggregate prevalence rates of mental disorder diagnoses. Others disaggregate across mental disorders and compare to the societal base rate. One study of 140 Dutch foreign fighters and attempted foreign fighters found that 6% had diagnosed disorders. These included psychotic, narcissistic, attention-deficit/hyperactivity, schizophrenia, autism spectrum, and post-traumatic stress disorders. An additional 20% displayed indications of other undiagnosed mental health problems. An investigation examining 153 lone-actor terrorists also noted a diverse range of disorders, including traumatic brain injury, drug dependence, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, delusional disorder, psychotic disorder, depression, bipolar disorder, unspecified anxiety disorder, dissociative disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, unspecified sleep disorder, unspecified personality disorder, and autism spectrum disorders. The authors noted that schizophrenia, delusional disorder and autism spectrum disorders were more prevalent than in the general population. Other studies examine statistical associations between disorder prevalence and specific behaviours and experiences. One investigation identified that lone-actors with a mental disorder are more likely to express violent desires, seek legitimization for their intended actions, stockpile weapons, train, carry out a successful attack, kill and injure, discriminate in their targeting, and claim responsibility. The study of psychopathology and terrorism has traditionally focused upon those who conducted, or at least attempted to conduct, violence. Those studies that instead focus upon individuals who hold attitudinal affinity with such cases are growing. These studies further highlight the importance of examining personality alongside several other personal, situational and attitudinal measures. A study of 52 teenagers in Gaza highlighted that depressive symptoms were common amongst supporters of “religiopolitical aggression”. One investigation developed a radicalization scale that asked 16 questions regarding sympathies for violent protest and terrorism. Of the 608 UK-based participants, those most sympathetic were significantly more likely to also self-report depression and to see religion as important. Condemnation of violent protest and terrorism was associated with a greater number of social contacts, less social capital, and an unavailability for work due to housekeeping or disability. There was no significant difference in terms of generalized anxiety scores. A European investigation deployed an extremist attitudes scale to 1,288 adolescents in Switzerland. Personal strain (which included personal stressors, negative life events and prior stays at a psychiatric hospital) was associated with significantly higher support for violent extremism, although this effect largely disappeared once other social and individual variables were included in the analysis. Those with poor coping skills were significantly more likely to support violent extremism. Self-reported low self-control had no impact upon violent extremism. The above investigations have value, as they identify disorders and symptoms which often co-occur with specific experiences. However, “detailed research would be needed to further clarify the precise nature and role (if any) of mental health problems in the development of violent activity”. In many cases, active symptoms may be present, but completely unrelated. Additionally, even symptoms of disorders that are associated with an increased risk of violence (e.g., substance use and active psychosis) may never give rise to an act of violence until they are combined with environmental factors that favor violence, in the context of a situational trigger. Although this perspective is theoretically coherent, research is yet to empirically determine at which point the experience