ATLANTA — New research has been published via National Institute of Justice Journal. The research titled Comparing Violent Extremism and Terrorism to Other Forms of Targeted Violence was written by Dr. B. Heidi Ellis, associate professor of psychology at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Edna Erez, professor in the Department of Criminology, Law, and Justice at the University of Illinois Chicago, Dr. John Horgan, Distinguished University Professor of Psychology, Director of the Violent Extremism Research Group (VERG) and Transcultural Conflict and Violence Initiative (TCV) faculty, at Georgia State University, Dr. Gary LaFree, distinguished university professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland and Dr. Ramón Spaaij, professor in the Institute for Health and Sport at Victoria University, Australia, and visiting professor at the Utrecht University School of Governance, The Netherlands.
The NIJ-supported research indicates that although there is no single, clear-cut overlap between individuals who engage in these types of violence, there are important and sometimes unexpected similarities. This article reviews findings from several NIJ-supported projects that explore similarities and differences between:
- Violent extremists and individuals who are involved in gangs.
- People who engage in terrorism and those involved in human trafficking.
- Lone actor terrorists (that is, single individuals whose terrorist acts are not directed or supported by any group or other individuals) and persons who commit nonideological mass murder.
Horgan is also the author of Terrorist Minds: The Psychology of Violent Extremism from Al-Qaeda to the Far Right released December 2023 and The Psychology of Terrorism (second edition, 2014) and Divided We Stand: The Strategy and Psychology of Ireland’s Dissident Terrorists (2012).
For Transcultural Conflict and Violence at GSU
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