Why do people engage in hate crime and violent extremism?

By Matteo Vergani

Introduction

We all have an intuitive understanding of what a “cause” is: in simple terms, a cause is something that has a consequence in terms of something else. We often make great efforts to understand the causes of social harms, like political violence and hate crime, because we imply that by removing them, we can prevent social harms from occurring in the future. Causes, however, are very difficult to pin down in the real world, where many different phenomena take place at the same time and affect each other in a web of relationships. In the research community, often the term “risk factor” is preferred to the term “cause”. In this module, we’ll clearly define these two concepts, and discuss the research evidence on this topic.

How can social science research establish causes of social phenomena like terrorism and hate crime?

Experimental research is naturally suited to determining the causes and effects of phenomena. In social sciences, the term experiment refers to studies where people are randomly assigned to treatment or control conditions. Randomly means that a process (for example, a coin flip) is used to ensure that people have the same chance of being assigned to the treatment condition, and therefore, they will not differ systematically in any other way. To make sure that the randomisation process works, social scientists usually check that the same proportions in terms of gender, age, income and other groups are present in both the treatment and control conditions.

Experimental research is virtually absent in the fields of terrorism, extremism and hate crime research. And, scholars have been calling for more robust experimental research in these fields for years now (see, for example, Green and Spry’s article on design and measurement strategies to improve causal inference in hate crime research).

The term “risk factor” is often used to indicate a factor that is associated with a given outcome but that, when removed, will not necessarily prevent the emergence of the outcome. Establishing an association is not as hard as establishing causation, but it is not an easy task either. For example, sometimes associations between factors can be the product of chance, especially if the samples of people studied are small. We therefore need to review a great deal of evidence and studies to understand whether we can trust in the existence of a real association between factors.

Is reliable research in this field possible?

Currently, scholars are vigorously discussing how more rigorous methodologies can be used to establish causation in the field of terrorism, radicalisation and crime (including hate crime). We list a few resources here, but we acknowledge that the list could be much longer. Some of these are quasi-experiments and other experiments, and others use innovative methodologies such as interrupted time series and matched comparison groups.

These resources are a reminder that it is possible to conduct rigorous research in the study of political and criminal violence. At the moment, there is just not enough of it, but there are good reasons to be confident that there will be more in the future.

·       Ana-Maria Bliuc (et al) “The effects of local socio-political events on group cohesion in online far-right communities” (2020)

·       Kurt Braddock, A Brief Primer on Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Methods in the Study of Terrorism (2019)

·       Zoey Reeve, Engaging with Online Extremist Material: Experimental Evidence (2019)

·       Chris Blattman (et al), Improving Security through Concentrated Policing in Bogotá, Colombia (2018)

·       Emma Hanes and Stephen Machin, Hate Crime in the Wake of Terror Attacks: Evidence From 7/7 and 9/11 (2014)

·       Donald Green and Amber Spry, Hate Crime Research: Design and Measurement Strategies for Improving Causal Inference (2014)

·       Elizabeth Levy Paluck, Reducing Intergroup Prejudice and Conflict Using the Media: A Field Experiment in Rwanda (2009)

What does the academic community say about the risk factors of violent extremism?

Many pages have been written about the risk factors of hate crime, terrorism and violent extremism. Scholars have developed an impressive number of theories on the topic; some of these theories are widely used, and others have never been used by anyone except their authors. To get a grasp on the main theories that have influenced this field of research, we suggest becoming familiar with the following articles.

The theories of radicalisation

1. An early but still very relevant review of radicalisation theories is Victoroff’s 2005 article titled “The Mind of the Terrorist”. The article reviews psychological theories relevant to explain radicalisation to terrorism. We highly recommend this article.
2. Randy Borum summarized in 2011 the main theories of radicalisation in the social sciences. The first article can be found here and the second article here.

In the last decade, there have been important theoretical developments that deserve attention. For example, the following articles are important milestones in the field of radicalisation research.

A very popular theory of radicalisation, which emerged relatively recently, is the Significance Quest Theory, presented in this article published in 2014. The theory supposes that radicalisation has three main components: a motivational component (which is the quest for meaning in life), an ideological component (which provides justification for violence) and a social component (which provides belonging through group processes and dynamics). This theory largely overlaps with the 3N model of radicalisation, in which the 3 Ns are: need (that is, the motivational component), narrative (that is, the ideological component) and network (that is, the social component).

One of the most famous theories of radicalisation is McCauley and Moskalenko’s Pyramid Model. The original version of the model can be found in an article published in 2008. In 2017, the authors produced a more complex “Two-Pyramids Model” of Radicalisation, to distinguish extremist opinion from extremist action, proposing the existence of two metaphorical pyramids. The first is the opinion pyramid, where at the base there are people who do not care about politics, in the middle there are people who believe in a cause but do not justify violence, and at the apex there are people who justify violence. The second is the action pyramid, where at the base there are people doing nothing for political causes, in the middle there are people engaged in legal political action, and at the apex there are individuals who engage in terrorism.

In 2019, Klausen and colleagues tested and developed one of the “classic” models of radicalisation: the New York Police Department (NYPD) four-phase radicalisation model. The authors empirically tested the model against empirical data and mathematical simulation models and identified common patterns that specify and validate the NYPD model.

Why do people engage in terrorism and violent extremism?

The literature on this topic is massive. Let us start by introducing a few review articles that have summarised hundreds of empirical studies on the topic.

In 2018, Vergani et al. published a review of 148 empirical studies published between 2001 and 2015 regarding the risk factors of violent extremism. They suggest that there are three categories of risk factors: push, pull and personal.

1. Push factors. Push factors include the following: the loss of legitimacy, geopolitical factors, state repression, relative deprivation, inequality, intergroup contact (e.g., the presence of different religious or ethnic groups in the same space) and violence (e.g., a high level of violence such as a war). In our coding, push factors also include variables such as unemployment and education because they capture the consequences of structural conditions for the individual.

2. Pull factors. Pull factors include the following: cognitive factors (e.g., the consumption of propaganda, cultural congruence, the perceived efficacy and morality of a group, the search for adventure), social mechanisms and group processes (e.g., identity fusion and identification, group dynamics, recruitment and leadership) and emotional and material incentives. The creation of family-like visceral bonds within terrorist groups is a particularly important element established by empirical research evidence.
3. Personal factors. Personal factors include the following: individual psychological vulnerabilities independent of push and pull factors (e.g., mental health conditions, depression, trauma), personality traits (such as narcissism and impulsivity) and individually specific demographic characteristics (e.g., age, gender, country of birth) that constitute subjective states and make the individual more vulnerable to extremism.

A systematic review of the social, economic, psychological and environmental risk factors of engagement in terrorism analysed the results of 50 empirical articles and identified 9 factors that were shown to have some association with terrorism: age, socioeconomic status, prior arrest, education, employment, relationship status, having a grievance, geographic locale and the type of geographic area. However, given the limitations of the research, the article suggests that there is insufficient evidence to conclude that any of these variables are empirically supported risk factors across ideologies and geographical areas.

Michele Grossman et al. (2016) conducted a systematic review of research conducted between 2011 and 2015 to find risk factors of violent extremism (among other topics explored by this review). The review identified a diverse set of factors in the literature by looking at the so-called root causes of terrorism, which are mainly structural and group level factors. Furthermore, the researchers identified a list of factors that influence or lead to violent extremism, which includes a list of sub-cultural factors (such as boundaries of identity and belonging and oppositional sub-cultures of resistance) and experiential factors (such as the desire for excitement and the search for meaning and glory). Moreover, this review points to the research on social media and the role of sourcing information, propaganda and social interactions online, and how this constitutes a new environment where mechanisms of radicalisation can take place.

Why do people engage in hate crime?

There are many criminological studies looking at risk factors of hate crime victimisation (see, for example, this article). However, studies that have looked at hate crime perpetrators and the risk factors associated with their engagement in hate crime are underdeveloped.

The most famous study is perhaps the 2002 study that produced a typology of hate crime offenders, based on 169 Boston police case files. The authors establish four types of hate crime: thrill, defensive, mission and retaliatory. Thrill-seeking offenders are individuals who commit a crime for excitement, power or to gain acceptance or status among their peers. Reactive, or defensive, offenders commit hate crimes to defend their “turf” against outsiders who are perceived by the offender as threats or intruders. In some cases, defensive crimes have an economic motivation, for example, when the offenders are perceived as having taken jobs in the neighbourhood. Mission-oriented offenders often suffer from psychological or mental illness and perceive the victims as being subhuman, unworthy, subordinate or even evil. Retaliatory offenders react in response to a perceived or real crime and retaliate by committing a crime against a member of the original group.

A criminological study conducted in 2005 looked at criminal histories and violence risk in a sample of 204 hate crime offenders and found that the severity of their criminal histories, the number of prior arrests and the number of criminal convictions were significantly greater for offenders who targeted racial minority victims. Also, offenders that committed more severe hate crimes belonged to hate groups.

At first glance, many of the risk factors associated with engagement in hate crime are similar to the risk factors of engagement in violent extremism. For example, the perception of defending a community from the invasion of an out-group, the search for adrenaline and thrills and vengeance and the dehumanisation of out-groups are definitely common areas. More comparative research in this field is needed to better understand similarities and differences between these two groups.

As stated in the previous module on “Defining hate, violent extremism and terrorism”, it is important to remember that there are different types of terrorist attacks and hate crimes.

Is lack of education a risk factor of violent extremism?

Scientific research often debunked popular myths. For example, many practitioners – and also academics – propose that education is associated with less political violence. However, a systematic review of 42 research articles published between 199 and 2016 showed above-average levels of education among terrorists and genocide perpetrators. This shows that relationship between education and political violence is complex and multidimensional, and not always education can be thought as a tool for peace.

Is strong religiosity a risk factor of engagement in religiously motivated terrorism?

Does strong religious belief serve as barrier or a gateway to terrorism? Most scholars in terrorism studies would suggest that religious knowledge tends to form a barrier to terrorist recruitment. However, scholars in social-psychology studies have long identified a significant positive association between certain forms of religiosity and negative views, prejudice and hate to out-groups, which are among the predictors of support for violence against out-groups. We discuss this contentious topic with Prof Greg Barton.

Does migration fuel anti-immigrant hate crime?

Michele Stacey and colleagues published a research article in 2011 where they used survey data to find out whether an increase in Hispanic migration was associated with an increase in anti-Hispanic hate crime in the United States.

They found that there were more anti-Hispanic hate crimes in the states having more Hispanic immigration. However, the authors also found that:

1) Anti-Hispanic hate crime was less frequent in neighbourhoods where Hispanic migrants were more numerous.

2) Economic variables (like unemployment and wealth in both the Hispanic and the general population) were not associated with increase in hate crime.

This research suggests that economic threat and proximity to migrants are not key variables to explain variation in hate crime. Rather, the perception of threat from people living in the same state is likely to be a more important predictor of hate crime.

Do terrorist attacks fuel hate crime?

The short answer is: yes. Emma Hanes and Stephen Machin conducted a study looking at the number of hate crimes before and after the 7/7 London terror attacks, and the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States. The researchers found a significant increase in hate crimes against Asian/Arab populations in the wake of both terror attacks. The increase is high immediately after the attacks, but average numbers of hate crimes remain higher than pre-attack levels for between 6 months to 1 year.

Is angry language a precursor of engagement in violence?

Some commentators have defined anger as “the shared fuel of mass shooters and everyday murderers”. Schools in the United States adopted devices to detect aggression and anger in the voices of students, in order to allow early intervention and disruption to prevent mass shootings and other episodes of violence.  Algorithms search for expressions of anger and vitriolic language in social media, with the hope of detecting and preventing hate crime and violence in real life. Can we really prevent violence by detecting early signs of anger? Is anger in political discourses a precursor of violent extremism? We discuss this contentious topic with Prof Leonie Huddy.

Do terrorists have mental health disorders?

This is one of the most controversial question in the history of terrorism studies. Earlier studies suggested that terrorists were “psychopaths”, without having much evidence. As a reaction, the field of terrorism studies later moved towards a consensus that “there is no terrorist psychological profile” and “there is no relationship between mental disorders and terrorism”. In recent years, studies by Paul Gill, Emily Corner and colleagues have challenged these widespread assumptions and suggested that the relationship between psychological factors and radicalisation to terrorism exist, but it’s not a linear or simple relationship. We summarize the following main points of recent literature on the topic:

1. Terrorists are “normal” means that psychopathologies are present among terrorists as much as among the general population.

2. Mental disorders should not be conflated with irrationality: rather, mentally disordered lone-actors are as likely as non-mentally disordered lone actors to engage in rational pre-attack behaviours.

3. Different mental disorders are associated with different types of terrorist and criminal involvement (for example, fixated individuals, lone actors and mass murderers are more likely to be schizophrenic than the general population, mass murderers are more likely to struggle with drug dependence).

We suggest the following readings:

Corner, Gill, Shouten, Farnham (2015) Mental Disorders, Personality Traits, and Grievance-Fueled Targeted Violence: The Evidence Base and Implications for Research and Practice

Corner, Gill (2019) Psychological Distress, Terrorist Involvement and Disengagement from Terrorism: A Sequence Analysis Approach