Randy Borum

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• Doctor of Psychology
• Professor and Director of Intelligence and National Security Studies at University of South Florida

Law enforcement and security services are facing a rising number of referrals involving concerns about an adolescent’s potential for extremist violence. Assessing and managing their risks requires a somewhat different approach than doing so with adults. While some risk and protective factors overlap, their significance varies at different stages, a...

Violent extremism (VE; i.e., terrorism) is an issue of increasing relevance in school settings. Worldwide, terrorist actors have increasingly targeted youth in schools both for victimization via attacks as well for radicalization and recruitment to their ranks. Although violent extremism as an ideologically motivated act can be distinguished from m...

Psychology has always provided a popular lens for understanding terrorism and violent extremism. But sometimes it has been used like a blunt instrument. Early inquiry on the “psychology of terrorism” tended to focus on the clinical dimensions of the discipline. Psychology was not broadly applied as a science of human behavior, which would include b...

Preadolescents’ involvement in religious congregations may serve as a distal protective factor against aggression. Interviews were conducted to explore Puerto Rico (PR) Christian church and faith-based organization (FBO) leaders' knowledge and perceptions about preadolescent violence, and the role of congregations in its prevention. Bullying was pe...

Cyber intelligence requires analytic and technical skills. It is a pillar of U.S. national security and is needed in the private sector. We outline a framework for cyber intelligence education, including a dual-track model to balance the technical and analytic requirements.

Powered by advances in computing technology, a range of professions and business enterprises have moved toward a more science-driven approach to operations. Law enforcement has been no exception. In fact, the modern day idea of intelligence-led policing (ILP) emerged in the UK in the 1990s as the country was pushing all government services to opera...

At least since the September 11, 2001 (9/11) terrorist attacks on America, Western countries have ranked terrorism as a high-priority security threat. Many Western nations have viewed violent extremism principally as an external threat-committed on or against one's homeland by individuals who have migrated or traveled from a foreign country. More r...

Terrorism and violent extremism profoundly challenge global security (Gupta, 2016). More than 62,000 known terrorist incidents occurred worldwide between January 2011 and October 2015. Although the overall number of incidents worldwide declined from 2014 (17,000) to 2015 (15,000), even that trend did not hold for Western Europe and North America, b...

The process by which extremist ideas and behaviors develops is commonly referred to as "radicalization." This chapter reviews some of the vexing issues in defining radicalization, particularly in the absence of rigorous research, and introduces the potential for social science-at the mass-, group- and individual-level--to illuminate the field's und...

The recent influx of foreign fighters into Syria, particularly those aligning with the Islamic State, has brought renewed attention to the security threat posed by people who cross borders to participate in armed conflict. Although foreign fighters have rarely, if ever, constituted the majority of combatants in a war or insurgency, understanding th...

Comments on the original article by Meloy, Roshdi, Glaz-Ocik, & Hoffmann (see record 2016-18836-002 ). There is much to admire in the collection of papers presented in this issue of the Journal of Threat Assessment and Management . The idea of having an investigative template or protocol for terrorism-related cases is intriguing. This is precisely...

Purpose – This paper aims to highlight the importance and role of strategic cyber intelligence to support risk-informed decision-making, ultimately leading to improved objectives, policies, architectures and investments to advance a nation or organization’s interests in the cyber domain. Design/methodology/approach – Integration of professional re...

The challenge of counterterrorism focuses increasingly on prevention. In this effort, nations are starkly confronted with questions about which people are likely to engage in terrorist action. Though a variety of risk assessment technologies are available for a range of populations and types of violent behavior, a robust empirical foundation does n...

Globalization’s “interconnecting” effects have blended with an ethos of instability to create an extraordinarily complex global security environment. Though the number of armed conflicts worldwide has declined since the early 1990s, the character of those conflicts has evolved in some troubling ways. Conventional inter-state wars are less common, b...

Full Text: http://works.bepress.com/randy_borum/61 Research on the psychology of terrorism has argued against the idea that most terrorist behavior is caused by mental illness or by a terrorist personality. This article suggests an alternative line of inquiry – an individual psychology of terrorism that explores how otherwise normal mental states...

Full Text: http://works.bepress.com/randy_borum/60

With a renewed interest in, and reliance on, human intelligence (HUMINT), an opportunity exists for the USG to re-examine its policies and practices for interviewing and interrogation to discern whether or not it is relying on best practices that are consistent with American values, international human rights and legal requirements. It is clear tha...

Preemployment psychological screenings of applicants in high-risk occupations, and fitness-for-duty evaluations of incumbents in high-risk positions, comprise a category of clinical forensic evaluations with an established foundation of practice standards, laws, and regulations that the forensic practitioner must know to practice effectively in thi...

The challenge of “lone offender” terrorism is a serious one for law enforcement and security services around the world. Though the tactic has been used for hundreds of years, the rising number—in some countries—and diversity of “lone” attacks are increasingly troublesome. Attempts to clearly define the phenomenon, however, have been rather elusive....

Disproportionate minority contact (DMC) is a pervasive problem throughout the juvenile justice system. This article explored whether mental illness may be an explanatory factor in DMC. Data such as measures of violence risk and symptoms of mental illness were taken from intake interviews with 482 detained youth in Connecticut. Results indicated tha...

Over the past decade, analysts have proposed several frameworks to explain the process of radicalization into violent extremism (RVE). These frameworks are based primarily on rational, conceptual models which are neither guided by theory nor derived from systematic research. This article reviews recent (post-9/11) conceptual models of the radicaliz...

In discourse about countering terrorism, the term "radicalization" is widely used, but remains poorly defined. To focus narrowly on ideological radicalization risks implying that radical beliefs are a proxy—or at least a necessary precursor—for terrorism, though we know this not to be true.Different pathways and mechanisms of terrorism involvement...

Background: Involvement in community-based church initiatives may serve as a distal protective factor for children's violence and risk behaviors. The purpose of this study was to assess Puerto Rico (PR) Christian denomination leaders' knowledge and perceptions about preadolescent violence, the role of congregations in its prevention, and the feasib...

Historically, as many as 7–10% of US police contacts have involved persons with mental illnesses, with a disproportionate amount of these encounters resulting in arrest, usually for minor offenses. Crisis Intervention Teams (CIT) were created, and have proliferated, to ameliorate this problem by offering a specialized response and serving – at leas...

Psychologists providing consultation to counterintelligence (CI) and counterterrorism (CT) missions of the U.S. Armed Forces and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) face multiple professional and personal challenges. The required roles and functions in operational support are quite distinct from those in providing clinical or health services, yet...

We may need to modify our traditional “center of gravity” analysis to accommodate multiple centers of gravity in an asymmetric diffusion of power. Insurgencies and movements of resistance are dynamic, living systems powered by social dynamics.65 Successful insurgent movements leverage their available sources of power to gain the sympathy of the bro...

Problem: Youth violence is a public health problem across all racial/ethnic groups, including US Hispanic children. Self-report data analyses demonstrate race/ethnicity's limited effect on the general proportion of non-fatal youth violence. Nonetheless, other characteristics which may vary by by race and ethnicity (behavioral norms, language compre...

Identifying and understanding the factors that predict treatment success is central to legal and clinical decision making about juveniles who commit sexual offenses. The current study surveyed 158 treatment providers who work with juvenile sexual offenders to explore empirically the construct of amenability as it relates to juvenile sex offender-sp...

School shootings have generated great public concern and fostered a widespread impression that schools are unsafe for many students; this article counters those misapprehensions by examining empirical evidence of school and community violence trends and reviewing evidence on best practices for preventing school shootings. Many of the school safety...

Full Text: http://works.bepress.com/randy_borum/48 Interpersonal trust - a willingness to accept vulnerability or risk based on expectations regarding another person’s behavior – is a vitally important concept for human behavior, affecting our interactions both with adversaries and competitors as well as with allies and friends. Indeed, interperso...

Homeless individuals are at increased risk for health and criminal justice problems. The aim of this study was to examine risk factors affecting arrest rates in a cohort of homeless people with co-occurring psychiatric and substance-abuse disorders. Baseline data were collected from 96 homeless individuals residing in a residential treatment facili...

This brochure presents a framework to view threats made by an insider that are targeted or intentional (as opposed to negligent or unintentional) and that involve some degree of deliberation (as opposed to those that may be considered impulsive). The framework was developed with the assumption that it must: Be applicable for both anonymous and know...

This prospective study examines the predictive validity of the Dutch version of the Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY) by examining relationships between SAVRY scores and various types of disruptive behavior during residential treatment. The SAVRY, a risk assessment instrument, was coded for 66 male adolescents on the basis of...

This study replicates and extends studies of the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument, Version 2 (MAYSI-2) in a sample of 479 urban, rural, and suburban 12–16year old youths (68% boys; 41% African American, 23% Latino) consecutively admitted to juvenile detention centers. Six principal components replicated the MAYSI-2 factor-analytically-deriv...

Citation: Borum, R., & Grisso, T. (2007). Developmental considerations for forensic assessment in delinquency cases. In A. Goldstein (ed.), Forensic psychology: Emerging topics and expanding roles Limited preview available via Google Books.

In conclusion, we have attempted to illustrate how the area of risk assessment has made significant advances in the last 15 years. As the field moved from an emphasis on the prediction of violence and identification of “dangerous” persons to a risk assessment model, application of new research approaches led to optimism that improvements in evaluat...

Overrepresentation of minorities and their disproportionate confinement in the U.S. justice system are pernicious, unyielding problems. The authors used the Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth to examine risk and protective factors of 757 juveniles admitted to detention centers. A chi-square analysis revealed that significantly more Afr...

Chapter 12 provides a forensic guide for assessing violence risk among youthful offenders. It discusses trends in youth violence, understanding violent behavior in juveniles, risk factors in youth violence, and assessing risk for general aggression in juveniles.

The practice of providing psychological or behavioral science support to counter-intelligence operations is relatively new, but actively evolving. Psychologists--some of whom refer to themselves as operational psychologists--provide assessments for, and consultations to, operators, case officers, service members, and others on psychological or beha...

Al-Qaeda is widely regarded by the military, law enforcement, diplomatic, and intelligence communities as being the foremost threat to U.S. national security and safety. The nature of this threat, however, has changed since al-Qaeda first emerged in the late 1980s. This article describes the emergence of a new form of transnational terrorism and de...

This article provides a descriptive, operational analysis of the modern anarchist movement, emphasizing the actions of the criminal anarchists and implications for US law enforcement. It begins by explaining some core tenets of anarchist “theory,” and its relationship to violence, then describes the structure, tactics and tradecraft of militant ana...

The recognition by the American Psychological Association (APA) of Forensic Psychology as a Specialty is a significant landmark for the field. This recognition has resulted from the development of a substantial body of professional literature and specialized knowledge. The foundation for these advances was laid in the decades of the 1970s, with the...

Psychologists are frequently asked to assess the psychological suitability of candidates and incumbent employees for law enforcement positions and other “high-risk” occupations. This chapter begins with a review of significant ethical issues that emerge in conducting high-risk occupational assessments generally, including Professional Competence, R...

More than a half-million juveniles are under community supervision as a result of violent or delinquent behavior. Research has shown that treatment can reduce their risk of reoffending. This article reviews and distills the key lessons from hundreds of empirical studies and metaanalyses and applies them to practice. The author argues for conducting...

Eighty-four medium and large law enforcement agencies reported the amount of training provided on mental-health-related issues and the use of specialized responses for calls involving people with mental illnesses. Departments varied widely in the amount of training provided on mental-health-related topics, with a median of 6.5 hours for basic recru...

Involuntary outpatient commitment is one of the most controversial issues in mental disability law. The criminal justice system at all levels has had difficulty in responding to the growing number of defendants with mental illness and substance-abuse disorders. Outpatient commitment has been offered as a tool that might reduce recidivism and violen...

The authors' goal was to evaluate the effectiveness of outpatient commitment in reducing victimization among people with severe mental illness. One hundred eighty-four involuntarily hospitalized patients were randomly assigned to be released (N=99) or to continue under outpatient commitment (N=85) after hospital discharge. An additional group of pa...

Attacks against judicial officials and the courts are rare events but carry the potential for tremendous impact on the Ameri- can judiciary. In this article, the authors describe a systematic ap- proach to prevent targeted violence against judges and their courts. They begin with a brief overview of findings from operational re- search on assassina...

Although significant advances in risk assessment research and practice have been made in recent years, there has not been any analysis in the professional literature regarding how and whether the emerging practice recommendations apply in Tarasoff-type situations. We suggest that, when faced with a Tarasoff-type situation, the appraisal of risk sho...

A randomized controlled trial of outpatient commitment was conducted in North Carolina to provide empirical data on involuntary outpatient commitment and to evaluate its effectiveness in improving outcomes among persons with severe mental illnesses. A total of 331 involuntarily hospitalized patients awaiting discharge under outpatient commitment we...

Involuntary outpatient commitment (OPC) is a promising but controversial legal intervention that may reduce criminal justice contact in persons with severe mental illness (SMI). This article examines arrest outcomes in a 1-year randomized study of OPC in 262 participants with SMI in North Carolina. Extended OPC was found to be significantly associa...

In the wake of recent school shootings, fear over violence in schools has prompted increased requests for psychologists, educators, and law enforcement professionals to assist in preventing future school violence incidents. We attempt to lay a foundation for developing effective assessment and prevention approaches by first distinguishing planned s...

Despite recent declines in the reported rate of juvenile violence, there appears to be increasing public and professional concern about violent behavior among children and adolescents. Media accounts of school shootings and juvenile homicides have prompted a need to develop approaches for systematically assessing violence risk. This article describ...

Each year, U.S. jails admit over 280,000 mentally ill people. These inmates often pose a tremendous challenge and concern for jail administrators. This article reports the results of a survey of jail mental health diagnostic and treatment services within each of Florida's 67 counties. Approximately 93% reported having some type of screening for men...

The study compared three models of police responses to incidents involving people thought to have mental illnesses to determine how often specialized professionals responded and how often they were able to resolve cases without arrest. Three study sites representing distinct approaches to police handling of incidents involving persons with mental i...

Violent behaviour among persons with severe mental illness (SMI) causes public concern and is associated with illness relapse, hospital recidivism and poor outcomes in community-based treatment. To test whether involuntary out-patient commitment (OPC) may help to reduce the incidence of violence among persons with SMI. One-year randomised trial of...

In this era, to enhance the quality of practice in assessing and treating forensic populations, the field must continue its commitment to clinically informed empirical research. However, it must also examine actual practice patterns and attempt to encourage practitioners to consume and use new research findings and ‘‘to practice according to the hi...

The goal of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of involuntary outpatient commitment in reducing rehospitalizations among individuals with severe mental illnesses. Subjects who were hospitalized involuntarily were randomly assigned to be released (N = 135) or to continue under outpatient commitment (N = 129) after hospital discharge and fo...

This study examined beliefs about the provisions of outpatient commitment and their effects among 306 people with severe and persistent mental illness who were awaiting a period of outpatient commitment. More than 80 percent of the respondents perceived that the court order for outpatient commitment required them to keep their appointments at the m...

The paper addresses some common questions about the insanity defense and issues raised by commonly proposed "reforms." The first section begins with a brief description of the insanity defense and the reasons for its existence in the law. It then examines some of the popular myths and public misperceptions surrounding the insanity defense. The next...

Recent increases in domestic and international acts of extremist violence perpetrated against American citizens have prompted an increased need for information to help understand and evaluate the threat posed to U.S. targets by extremist groups and their individual members. The purpose of this paper is to (i) suggest the potential relevance of soci...

The need to better understand and manage risk of violent behavior among persons with severe mental illness (SMI) in community care is increasingly being recognized. Of particular concern is a subset of the SMI population characterized by a "revolving door" pattern of institutional recidivism and poor adherence to outpatient treatment. Little empiri...

Although the field of risk assessment has made tremendous advances in the past 20 years, assessments of targeted violence continue to pose a significant challenge to law enforcement, mental health, and other professionals. These specific and critical assessments require an innovative approach. The threat assessment model, developed and refined by t...

Recent increases in domestic and international acts of extremist violence perpetrated against American citizens have prompted an increased need for information to help understand and evaluate the threat posed to U.S. targets by extremist groups and their individual members. The purpose of this paper is to (i) suggest the potential relevance of soci...

The types and amounts of crime experienced by persons with severe mental illness were examined to better understand criminal victimization in this population. Subjects were 331 involuntarily admitted psychiatric inpatients who were ordered by the court to outpatient commitment after discharge. Extensive interviews provided information on subjects'...

Police departments in the 194 U.S. cities with a population of 100,000 or more were surveyed in 1996 to identify strategies they used to obtain input from the mental health system about dealing with mentally ill persons. A total of 174 departments responded (90 percent). Ninety-six departments had no specialized response for dealing with mentally i...

This paper addresses some common questions about the insanity defense and issues raised by commonly proposed "reforms." The first section begins with a brief description of the insanity defense and the reasons for its existence in the law. It then examines some of the popular myths and public misperceptions surrounding the insanity defense. The nex...

Data from a sample of severely and persistently mentally ill involuntary patients indicated that differences in violence between males and females in the 4 months prior to hospital admission depended on the measure. In the bivariate analysis, males had a greater prevalence of violence on the two indicators which separated more serious violence from...

Increasing numbers of severely mentally ill individuals are being treated in nonhospital, community-based settings and public concern about potential violence by these individuals has increased, often as a result of tragic, albeit uncommon events. The present study examines potential predictors of serious violence among persons with severe mental i...

The need to better understand and manage risk of violent behavior among people with severe mental illness in community care settings is increasingly being recognized, as public-sector mental health systems face mandates to provide more cost-effective services in less restrictive environments. The potential for serious violence in a small proportion...

In this study, we sampled sworn police officers from three law enforcement agencies (n=452), each of which had different system responses to mentally ill people in crisis. One department relies on field assistance from a mobile mental health crisis team, a second has a team of officers specially trained in crisis intervention and management of ment...