Making Sense of terrorist violence and building psychological expertise

This chapter is broadly concerned with the assessment of targeted violence, a term referring to instrumental and predatory violence, framed and justified by a shared ideology in the case of terrorists, or a more idiosyncratic belief system in the case of lone actors. It reviews some of the frameworks developed to identify threat before the crime and to assess the risk of extremist violence after the crime, and discusses the learning that has accrued from postdictive studies and ongoing empirical research, with the aim of synthesizing this learning and deepening the understanding of what drives these crimes. The roles of criminality and mental disorder are specifically discussed in relation to a possible triple pathway model for radicalization that clarifies the role of both in each pathway. The importance of theorization is stressed at this stage of current knowledge, with some suggestions for future research.