Before the Attack: Theoretical and Empirical work on Terrorism and Hate Crime

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract/Description

Research on terrorism has paid considerable attention to understanding the diverse political and ideological beliefs of extremists. This panel focuses on theoretical and empirical approaches to understanding the nature of precursors to hate crime and terrorism across the ideological spectrum. The first paper tests neutralization theory using Liddick’s (2013) expanded list of techniques of neutralization by drawing from U.S. Extremist Crime Database data on far-right, Islamist, far-left, and ALF/ELF (animal/environmental rights) extremists. The second paper draws from open-source data using Latent Class Analysis to assess the warning behaviors that signal one’s mobilization to terrorism or targeted violence, and whether the warning behaviors that indicate involvement in terrorism and violent extremism are similar or different from those that indicate perpetration of targeted violence. The third paper examines the relationship between personal or extreme ideological beliefs and attack outcomes among public mass shooters in the United States between 1966 to 2023. The final paper explores whether culture of honor theory explains support for ideologically-motivated violence through two randomized experiments using virtual reality technology.

Sub Unit

• Area III. Types of Offending / 20. State Crime, Political Crime, and Terrorism

Individual Presentations

• Techniques of Neutralization and Violent Extremists in the United States - Colleen E. Mills, Penn State Abington; Celinet Duran, SUNY Oswego

• Comparing Warning Behaviors Demonstrated by Violent Extremists and Mass Shooters - Noah Turner, University of Nebraska Omaha / NCITE; Emily Greene-Colozzi, University of Massachusetts Lowell; Brent Klein, University of South Carolina; Steven Chermak, Michigan State University; Joshua Freilich, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY

• What Effect Does Ideological Extremism Have on Mass Shootings? An Assessment of Motivational Inconsistencies, Risk Profiles, and Attack Behaviors - Adam Lankford, The University of Alabama; Jason R. Silva, William Paterson University

• Culture of Honor and Ideologically-Motivated Violence: Two Virtual Reality Experiments - Jennifer Varriale Carson, University of Central Missouri

Chair

• Jennifer Varriale Carson, University of Central Missouri

Organized by a Division or external group?

American Society of Criminology Division on Terrorism and Bias Crimes