Is There a Nexus Between Terrorist Involvement and Mental Health in the Age of the Islamic State?

The wave of Islamic State-linked terrorism experienced in the West over the past couple of years has rekindled debates surrounding mental disorders and terrorist engagement. A very preliminary survey by the authors found that out of 55 attacks in the West where the 76 individuals involved were possibly influenced by the Islamic State, according to media reports, 27.6% had a history of apparent psychological instability, a percentage comparable to that found in the general population. This figure is driven largely by individuals inspired by the Islamic State, as opposed to those directed by it, however. The percentage is likely overinflated for several noteworthy reasons, including poor reporting, low benchmarks, and the tendency to overuse mental health problems as a ‘silver-bullet’ explanation for terrorist involvement. The relationship is, in fact, far more complex than typically presented

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

For the past forty years, researchers studied the relationship between mental disorder and terrorist involvement. The literature developed in four 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 one another. Although one paradigm has generally tended to dominate a temporal period, many false assumptions and incorrect interpretations of earlier work permeate into today’s discourse. This paper provides a history of the study of mental disorders and the terrorist. First, we briefly outline the core fundamental principles of the first two paradigms, The paper then outlines the core arguments produced by the seminal reviews conducted in paradigm three. 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

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

Psychological distress and terrorist engagement: Measuring, correlating, and sequencing its onset with negative life events, social factors, and protective factors

This article employs probability-based modelling to unpack the complex and multifaceted individual, social, and psychological processes that may provide psychological protection for individuals engaged with terrorist groups. We outline the predictors of the onset of psychological distress across two phases of terrorist involvement (pre-engagement and engagement). Using a dataset of 96 terrorist autobiographies, we conduct sequence analyses to pinpoint the onset of psychological problems and the experiences that preceded and followed this onset. The results demonstrate a complexity in the relationship between mental disorders and terrorist engagement, as well as the heterogeneity of the lived experience of “being” a terrorist. The experience of psychological distress was mediated by numerous factors and the combination of these factors. The evidence suggests that, in certain cases, individual and group resilience may be a protective factor when an individual faces negative experiences. The presence of protective factors may not be sufficient to explain why group-actor terrorists present with a lower than expected prevalence of mental disorder. Future work should examine whether experiences commonly viewed as risk factors may be more useful in examining the occurrence of psychopathology in terrorists

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

Recent research on lone-actor terrorism has found a high prevalence of mental health disorders amongst 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 upon the argument that mental health problems and terrorist behaviour should not be treated as a yes/no dichotomy. Descriptive results of mental health disorders are outlined utilising a number of unique datasets

Updating and organizing our knowledge of risk and protective factors for lone-actor terrorism

This chapter updates builds upon previous descriptive analyses of loneactor terrorists, their behaviours, ideological backgrounds and degrees of 'loneness'. It offers greater conceptual clarity, updated data and a more expansive set of variables from previous analyses. Individual vulnerability indicators examined here include potential indicators of cognitive susceptibility to moral change, and self-selection and social selection into radicalizing settings, notably membership of a social network containing one or more radicalized individual. We also examine exposure settings, attack-preparation behaviours and explore sub-set analyses of the data. The analyses informed by a Risk Analysis Framework which offers a multilevel, integrated meta-model of these events and allows for the synthesis of disparate findings. The analyses provide key insights into the behaviour of lone-actors, which could inform intelligence gathering and investigative practice, as such analyses already do in other crime prevention domains

The multifinality of vulnerability indicators in lone-actor terrorism

To move beyond current aggregate and static conclusions regarding radicalisation and subsequent terrorist behaviour, empirical research should look to criminological models which are influenced by the life-course perspective. Current UK government policy designed to prevent radicalisation and terrorist engagement look to outputs from criminological perspectives to inform policy and practice. However, the guidance suffers from a lack of specificity as to the major concept of ‘vulnerability to radicalisation’, and what this incorporates. This investigation uses sequential analyses to add to our understanding of ‘vulnerability’ in the specific context of lone-actor terrorism. The statistical method bridges the gap between qualitative and quantitative approaches and provides a series of empirical outputs which visualise typical lone-actor terrorist trajectories through the discrete stages of radicalisation, attack planning and attack commission

What Do Closed Source Data Tell Us About Lone Actor Terrorist Behavior? A Research Note

This article contributes to the growing body of knowledge on lone-actor terrorism with the incorporation of closed-source data. The analyses presented investigate the antecedent behaviors of U.K.-based lone-actor terrorists leading up to their planning or conducting a terrorist event. The results suggest that prior to their attack or arrest the vast majority of lone-actor terrorists each demonstrated elements concerning (a) their grievance, (b) an escalation in their intent to act, (c) gaining capability—both psychologically and technically and (d) attack planning. The results also disaggregate our understanding of lone-actor terrorists in two ways. First, we compare the behaviors of the jihadist actors to those of the extreme-right. Second, we visualize Borum’s (2012) continuums of loneness, direction, and motivation. Collectively the results provide insight into the threat assessment and management of potential lone actors

Shooting Alone: The Pre-Attack Experiences and Behaviors of U.S. Solo Mass Murderers with Implications for Threat Assessments

This paper outlines the socio-demographic, 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 individual’s 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