Parallels between crime and terrorism: A social psychological perspective

Studies in Conflict and Terrorism

Volumn 32, Issue 9, 2009, Pages 811-830

  Mullins, Sam ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG   (Australia)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 70349626813     PISSN: 1057610X     EISSN: 15210731     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10576100903109776     Document Type: Article

References (145)

1. See Andrew Silke, An Introduction to Terrorism Research, in A. Silke, ed. Research on Terrorism: Trends, Achievements and Failures (London: Frank Cass, 2004), pp. 1-29.
2. Gary LaFree and Laura Dugan, How Does Studying Terrorism Compare to Studying Crime? in Mathieu Deflem, ed., Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism: Criminological Perspectives, Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance Volume 5 (Oxford: Elsevier, 2004), pp. 53-74, at 57-58.
3. Tamara Makarenko, Terrorism and Transnational Organized Crime: Tracing the Crime-Terror Nexus in South East Asia in Paul Smith. ed., Terrorism and Violence in South East Asia: Transnational Challenges to States and Regional Stability (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2005), pp. 169-187.
4. Glenn Curtis and Tara Karacan, The Nexus Among Terrorists, Narcotics Traffickers, Weapons Proliferators, and Organized Crime Networks in Western Europe (Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 2002).
5. Irish Republican Army.
6. Basque Fatherland and Liberty (Spain).
7. Kurdistan Workers' Party (Turkey).
8. Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
9. Curtis and Karacan, The Nexus Among Terrorists, Narcotics Traffickers, Weapons Prolif-erators, and Organized Crime Networks in Western Europe.
10. Chester Oehme 3, Terrorists, Insurgents, and Criminals-Growing Nexus? Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 31(1) (2008), pp. 80-93.
11. Ibid., p. 82, commenting on Louise Shelly, John Picarelli, Allison Irby, Douglas Hart, Patricia Craig-Hart, Phil Williams, Steven Simon, Nabi Abdullaev, Bartosz Stanislawski, and Laura Covill, Methods and Motives: Exploring the Links between Transnational Organized Crime and International Terrorism (Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, 23 June 2005).
12. Chris Dishman, The Leaderless Nexus: When Crime and Terror Converge, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 28(3) (2005), pp. 237-252.
13. Louise Shelley and John Picarelli, Methods Not Motives: Implications of the Convergence of International Organized Crime and Terrorism, Police Practice and Research: An International Journal 3(4) (2002), pp. 305-318.
14. Ibid., p. 314.
15. Kosovo Liberation Army.
16. Louise Shelley, The Nexus of Organized International Criminals and Terrorism, International Annals of Criminology 20 (2002), pp. 85-92.
17. Reprinted on the U.S. Department of State website, http://usinfo.state.gov/eap/Archive_Index/The_Nexus_of_Organized_International_Criminals_and_Terrorism.html (accessed 15 March 2008).
18. See Javier Jordan, Fernando Manas, and Nicola Horsburgh, Strengths and Weaknesses of Grassroot Jihadist Networks: The Madrid Bombings, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 31 (2008), pp. 17-39.
19. Javier Jordan, Evolution of Jihadism in Spain Following the 3/11 Madrid Terrorist Attacks, Perspectives on Terrorism 1(3) (2007), available at http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/ index.php?option=com rokzine&view=article&id=11&Itemid=54 (accessed 6 March 2008).
20. See Hal Bernton, Mike Carter, David Heath, and James Neff, The Terrorist Within: The Story Behind One Man's Holy War Against America, The Seattle Times, 23 June-7 July 2002, chapter 6, available at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/nation-world/terroristwithin/ (accessed 27 October 2007).
21. Sean O'Neill and Daniel McGrory, The Untouchable: How Abu Hamza Was Allowed to Preach Hate as Authority Looked the Other Way, The Times Online, 1 June 2006, available at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article670249.ece (accessed 10 May 2008)
22. Curtis and Karacan, The Nexus Among Terrorists, Narcotics Traffickers, Weapons Prolif-erators, and Organized Crime Networks in Western Europe, p. 23.
23. Shelley, The Nexus of Organized International Criminals and Terrorism.
24. Makarenko, Terrorism and Transnational Organized Crime.
25. See Stanley Wasserman and Katherine Fauss, Social Network Analysis (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
26. Michael Kenney, From Pablo to Osama: Counter-Terrorism Lessons from the War on Drugs, Survival, 45(3) (2003), pp. 187-206.
27. Dishman, The Leaderless Nexus: When Crime and Terror Converge.
28. Kenney, From Pablo to Osama.
29. Shelley and Picarelli, Methods Not Motives.
30. Kenney, From Pablo to Osama.
31. See Frank Weerman, Co-Offending as Social Exchange: Explaining Characteristics of Co-Offending, British Journal of Criminology 43 (2003), pp. 398-416.
32. Andrew Silke, Holy Warriors: Exploring the Psychological Processes of Jihadi Radicalization, European Journal of Criminology 5(1) (2008), pp. 99-123.
33. Kellina Craig, Examining Hate-Motivated Aggression: A Review of the Social Psychological Literature on Hate-Crimes as a Distinct Form of Aggression, Aggression & Violent Behavior 7 (2002), pp. 85-101.
34. Cook County State's Attorney's Office (1994) p. II-5, cited in Craig, Examining Hate-Motivated Aggression, p. 97.
35. Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), pp. 61-98.
36. Marc Sageman, Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008).
37. Ibid., pp. 47-70. These findings, excepting for age, are supported by Bakker's study of European jihadists (Edwin Bakker, Jihadi Terrorists in Europe: Their Characteristics and the Circumstances in Which They Joined the Jihad: An Exploratory Study (The Hague: Clingendael Institute, 2006)). The reason for the disparity with regard to age is possibly due to differences in sampling, and the fact that Sageman's study (Leaderless Jihad) divides the evolution of global jihad into three overlapping yet distinct waves, (see pp. 48-50) whereas Bakker's sample spans across these waves and therefore is not able to detect these differences.
38. Ibid., pp. 62-65.
39. For example, see Lorenzo Vidino, Current Trends in Jihadi Networks in Europe, Terrorism Monitor 5(20) (2007), pp. 8-11.
40. Silke, Holy Warriors, p. 119.
41. Naureen Chowdhury Fink and Ellie Hearne, Beyond Terrorism: Beyond Deradicalization and Disengagement from Violent Extremism (New York: International Peace Institute, 2008) http://www.ipacademy.org/asset/file/384/BETER.pdf (accessed 23 February 2009).
42. John Horgan, The Psychology of Terrorism (New York: Routledge, 2005).
43. Sageman, Leaderless Jihad, pp. 13-28.
44. See Ronald Blackburn, The Psychology of Criminal Conduct: Theory, Research and Practice (Cichester: John Wiley and Sons, 1993); Horgan, The Psychology of Terrorism.
45. For example, Linda Teplin, The Prevalence of Severe Mental Disorder Among Male Urban Jail Detainees: Comparison with the Epidemiologic Catchment Area Program, American Journal of Public Health 80(6) (1990), pp. 663-669.
46. This varies according to offense type. Most research on this topic has been regarding rates of mental disorder among violent offenders, to whom terrorists are often compared. For example, Silke states that many studies have found that terrorists are psychologically much healthier and far more stable than other violent criminals (Silke, Holy Warriors, p. 104). However, there is no particular reason to believe that terrorists should be generally similar to other violent offenders, given among other things, the often physically remote versus up-close and personal modus operandi involved. What's more, Blackburn concludes that with the possible exception of some forms of personality disorder, none of the major categories recognized by psychiatry seems strongly associated with a propensity for violence (Blackburn, The Psychology of Criminal Conduct, p. 276).
47. Jerold Post, When Hatred is Bred in the Bone: Psycho-Cultural Foundations of Contemporary Terrorism, Political Psychology 26(4) (2005), pp. 615-636.
48. Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks, pp. 95-96.
49. "Criminalization" is usually used to mean "to make something illegal" from the law's point of view. Here it is used to parallel the term radicalization, meaning to accept certain beliefs and adopt certain behaviors. Criminalization is thus the process of becoming a criminal.
50. Edwin Sutherland, Principles of Criminology, 4th ed. (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1947)
51. cited in Ross Matsueda, Differential Social Organization, Collective Action and Crime, Crime, Law & Social Change 46 (2006), pp. 3-33.
52. Ronald Akers, Deviant Behaviour: A Social Learning Approach, 2nd ed. (Belmont: Wadsworth, 1977).
53. Lawrence Walker, Karl Hennig, and Tobias Krettenauer, Parent and Peer Contexts for Children's Moral Reasoning Development, Child Development 71(4) (2000), pp. 1033-1048.
54. David Henry, Patrick Tolan, and Deborah Gorman-Smith, Longitudinal Family and Peer Group Effects on Violence and Nonviolent Delinquency, Journal of Clinical Child Psychology 30(2) (2001), pp. 172-186.
55. He Len Chung and Lawrence Steinberg, Relations Between Neighbourhood Factors, Parenting Behaviours, Peer Deviance and Delinquency Among Serious Juvenile Offenders, Developmental Psychology 42(2) (2006), pp. 319-331.
56. David Best, Rosa Hernando, Michael Gossop, Clare Sidwell, and John Strang, Getting By With a Little Help From Your Friends: The Impact of Peer Networks on Criminality in a Cohort of Treatment-Seeking Drug-Users, Addictive Behaviors 28 (2003), pp. 597-603.
57. Horgan, The Psychology of Terrorism, p. 34.
58. This is by no means a stand-alone, comprehensive theory of co-offending; however, it does form an important part of more powerful explanatory models. See Weerman, "Co-Offending as Social Exchange".
59. See Rob White, Understanding Youth Gangs, Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice (Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, Paper 237, August 2002).
60. In a study notable for its opportunistic, snowballing methodology and intensive participant observation in south-western California's drug-dealing scene, Adler and Adler report that social contacts are extremely important both for gaining entry into professional drug-dealing, and in affecting decisions to continue in, or desist from, such activity (Patricia Adler and Peter Adler, Shifts and Oscillations in Deviant Careers: The Case of Upper-Level Drug Dealers and Smugglers, Social Problems 31(2) (1983), pp. 195-207.
61. Jeffrey McIllwain, Organized Crime: A Social Network Approach, Crime, Law & Social Change 32 (1999), pp. 301-323.
62. Michael Kenney, The Architecture of Drug Trafficking: Network Forms of Organisation in the Colombian Drug Trade, Global Crime 8(3) (2007), pp. 233-259.
63. Rex Hudson, The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why? (Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1999), pp. 24-26.
64. Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks, pp. 107-135.
65. Sageman, Leaderless Jihad, pp. 66-69.
66. Bakker, Jihadi Terrorists in Europe, p. 44.
67. Kathleen Carley, Group Stability: A Socio-Cognitive Approach, Advances in Group Processes, 7 (1999), pp. 1-44.
68. While this increased likelihood may be statistically universal, it is important to clarify that it is a risk factor only and the effects of different associations are neither deterministic nor inevitable.
69. Weerman, Co-Offending as Social Exchange.
70. Ross Matsueda, Rosemary Gartner, Irving Piliavin, and Michael Polakowski, The Prestige of Criminal and Conventional Occupations: A Subcultural Model of Criminal Activity, American Sociological Review 57(6) (1992), pp. 752-770.
71. Horgan, The Psychology of Terrorism, pp. 80-106.
72. Not dissimilarly, Potter notes that To suggest that righteous citizens are being perverted, intimidated, and forced into vice by alien forces is far more palatable than suggesting that 'native' demands for illicit drugs, sex, and gambling invite the creation of organized crime groups (G. Potter, Criminal Organisation (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 1994), p. 10, cited in Dick Hobbs, Going Down the Glocal: The Local Context of Organised Crime, The Howard Journal 37(4) (1998), pp. 407-422, at p. 408).
73. Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks, pp. 124-125.
74. Sageman, Leaderless Jihad, pp. 50-52.
75. Sageman Understanding Terror Networks.
76. Bakker, Jihadi Terrorists in Europe.
77. Petter Nesser, Jihad in Europe; Recruitment for Terrorist Cells in Europe, in Paths to Global Jihad: Radicalisation and Recruitment to Terror Networks (Proceedings from a Norwegian Defence Research Establishment seminar, Oslo, 15 March 2006), pp. 2-21, available at http://rapporter.ffi.no/rapporter/2006/00935.pdf (accessed 18 February 2008).
78. See Albert Reiss Jr., Co-Offending and Criminal Careers, Crime and Justice 10 (1988), pp. 117-170, pp. 140-150; Mark Warr, Organization and Instigation in Delinquent Groups, Criminology 34(1) (1996), pp. 11-37.
79. Mark Warr, Organization and Instigation in Delinquent Groups, Criminology 34(1) (1996), pp. 11-37.
80. Carlo Morselli, Pierre Tremblay, and Bill McCarthy, Mentors and Criminal Achievement, Criminology 44(1) (2006), pp. 17-43.
81. Ibid., p. 19.
82. Howard Becker, Becoming a Marihuana User, The American Journal of Sociology 59(3) (1953), pp. 235-242, p. 235.
83. Howard Becker, Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance (New York: Free, 1963), p. 42.
84. cited by Ross Matsueda, Differential Social Organization, Collective Action and Crime, Crime, Law & Social Change 46 (2006), pp. 3-33, at p. 28.
85. Sageman, Leaderless Jihad, pp. 75-76.
86. Ibid., p. 75.
87. Horgan, The Psychology of Terrorism, p. 138.
88. An example of this is Bem's theory of self-perception, whereby individuals may infer a personal quality or state within themself as a result of having behaved in a certain way (Daryl Bem, Self-Perception: An Alternative Interpretation of Cognitive Dissonance Phenomena, Psychological Review 74(3) (1967), pp. 183-200).
89. Nesser, Jihad in Europe.
90. Mitchell Silber and Arvin Bhatt, Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat (New York City Police Department, 2007).
91. Warr, Organization and Instigation in Delinquent Groups.
92. Louise Porter and Laurence Alison, Behavioural Coherence in Group Robbery: A Cir-cumplex Model of Offender and Victim Interactions, Aggressive Behaviour 32(4) (2006), pp. 330- 342.
93. Louise Porter and Laurence Alison, The Primacy of Decision-Action as an Influence Strategy of Violent Gang Leaders, Small Group Research 36(2) (2005), pp. 188-207.
94. See, for example, Ronald Akers, Marvin Krohn, Lonn Lanza-Kaduce, and Marcia Rado-sevich, Social Learning and Deviant Behavior: A Specific Test of a General Theory, American Sociological Review 44(4) (1979), pp. 636-655.
95. Michael Hogg, Dominic Abrams, Sabine Otten, and Steve Hinkle, The Social Identity Perspective: Intergroup Relations, Self-Conception and Small Groups, Small Group Research 35(3) (2004), pp. 246-276.
96. White, Understanding Youth Gangs, p. 4.
97. Beth Bjerregaard, Self-Definitions of Gang Membership and Involvement in Delinquent Activities, Youth & Society 34(1) (2002), pp. 31-54.
98. Silke, Holy Warriors: Exploring the Psychological Processes of Jihadi Radicalization, p. 109.
99. According to criteria identified by Gamson, terrorists' rhetoric thus fulfils all three elements of collective action frames necessary to effectively mobilize others in the name of the cause. Along with clearly defined antagonists (us and them), it is also vital to define both the root and solution of the given problem collectively, and to draw attention to injustice, which can be righted through a challenger's action, (W. Gamson, Strategy of Social Protest, 2nd Edition (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1990), p. 155, cited by Matsueda, Differential Social Organization, Collective Action and Crime, p. 20.
100. Stereotyping adds to social distance. Along with cultural, moral, and "mechanical" distance (use of remote killing technology) terrorists' dehumanization of the enemy is maximized (see Dave Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (New York: Little, Brown & Company, 1995), pp. 156-170).
101. See Irving Janis, Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes, 2nd edition (Boston, MA: Houghton-Mifflin, 1982).
102. Other factors conducive to groupthink, which may occur to varying extents in terrorism, include social isolation, perceived external threats and directive leadership (ibid.).
103. Hence individuals feel less personally responsible for the actions of the group.
104. See, for example, Sageman, Leaderless Jihad, p. 140.
105. Horgan, The Psychology of Terrorism, p. 95.
106. See, for example, Horgan, The Psychology of Terrorism, pp. 132-135.
107. Stephen Reicher, Russel Spears, and T. Postmes, A Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Phenomena, European Review of Social Psychology 6(1) (1995), pp. 161-198.
108. Clifford Stott, Police Expectations and the ControlofEnglish Soccer Fans at'Euro 2000,' Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 26(4) (2003), pp. 640-655;
109. Stephen Reicher, Clifford Stott, Patrick Cronin, and Otto Adang, An Integrated Approach to Crowd Psychology and Public Order Policing, Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management 27(4) (2004), pp. 558-572.
110. Silke, Holy Warriors, pp. 113-115.
111. Social identity and self-categorization theories essentially tie together a number of related phenomena shown to be significant in terrorism research, including group-level identification, depersonalization, diffusion of responsibility, collective empathy, mortality salience, and coalitional processes. By addressing each of these through a unified theoretical lens, continuity of understanding is achieved along with a greater appreciation of how different circumstances are likely to affect identity and behavior.
112. For public order policing practice Reicher et al. emphasize the importance of understanding specific social identities, facilitating legitimate group intentions, maintaining open channels of communication between groups, and differentiating among large social collectives (Reicher et al., "An Integrated Approach to Crowd Psychology and Public Order Policing"). The same principles are clearly relevant to existing and prospective counterterrorism measures.
113. LaFree and Dugan, How Does Studying Terrorism Compare to Studying Crime?
114. See Maggie Kirkman, What's The Plot? Applying Narrative Theory to Research in Psychology, Australian Psychologist 37(1) (2002), pp. 30-38.
115. See Ziva Kunda, Social Cognition: Making Sense of People (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), pp. 451-512.
116. Hence the explanation offered by Silke regarding different demographic profiles (above) is refined.
117. Edwin Sutherland, The Professional Thief by a Professional Thief (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1937).
118. cited by Kenney, The Architecture of Drug Trafficking.
119. Kenney, The Architecture of Drug Trafficking.
120. Ibid.; McIllwain, Organized Crime.
121. Kenney, From Pablo to Osama.
122. Ibid; Also, for example, Lorenzo Vidino, The Hofstad Group: The New Face of Terrorist Networks in Europe, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 30(7) (2007), pp. 579-592.
123. Reiss Jr., Co-Offending and Criminal Careers, pp. 141-142.
124. Ibid., pp. 142-143.
125. Neal Shover, The Social Organization of Burglary, Social Problems 20(4) (1973), pp. 499-514.
126. Mark Granovetter, The Strength of Weak Ties, The American Journal of Sociology 78(6) (1973), pp. 1360-1380.
127. Mark Granovetter, The Strength of Weak Ties: A Network Theory Revisited, Sociological Theory 1 (1983), pp. 201-233.
128. Sageman has previously drawn attention to the relevance of Granovetter's work in the context of Islamist terrorism; weak ties external to radical cliques of friends were thus seen as instrumental to providing links to formal jihadi organizations such as Al Qaeda (Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks, pp. 168-171). This particular function may have decreased somewhat in importance as the autonomy of groups of terrorists has increased; however, the point remains that terrorist networks appear to be manifest as small groups linked together by peripheral figures and "hubs".
129. Kenney, The Architecture of Drug Trafficking.
130. Shover, The Social Organization of Burglary; Werner Einstadter, The Social Organization of Armed Robbery, Social Problems 17(1) (1969), pp. 64-83.
131. Einstadter, The Social Organization of Armed Robbery, p. 72.
132. Shover, The Social Organization of Burglary.
133. Lorenzo Vidino, Current Trends in Jihadi Networks in Europe, Terrorism Monitor 5(20) (2007), pp. 8-11.
134. Warr, Organization and Instigation in Delinquent Groups.
135. Reiss Jr., Co-Offending and Criminal Careers.
136. Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks; Bakker, Jihadi Terrorists in Europe.
137. Horgan, The Psychology of Terrorism, p. 133.
138. Kenney, The Architecture of Drug Trafficking, pp. 255-258
139. Dick Hobbs, Going Down the Glocal.
140. Ibid., p. 417.
141. Horgan, The Psychology of Terrorism.
142. Ibid., p. 155.
143. Neal Shover, The Later Stages of Ordinary Property Offender Careers, Social Problems 31(2) (1983), pp. 208-218, p. 212.
144. Kenney, The Architecture of Drug Trafficking, p. 255.
145. Adler and Adler, Shifts and Oscillations in Deviant Careers: The Case of Upper-Level Drug Dealers and Smugglers.