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Criminology Theory and Terrorism:
Introduction to the Special Issue
Joshua D. Freilichabc & Gary LaFreedc
a Doctoral Program in Criminal Justice, City University of New York,
New York, New York,
b Department of Criminal Justice, John Jay College, City University
of New York, New York, New York,
c National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to
Terrorism, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA
d Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of
Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA
Published online: 09 Dec 2014.
To cite this article: Joshua D. Freilich & Gary LaFree (2015) Criminology Theory and
Terrorism: Introduction to the Special Issue, Terrorism and Political Violence, 27:1, 1-8, DOI:
10.1080/09546553.2014.959405
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2014.959405
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Criminology Theory and Terrorism: Introduction
to the Special Issue
JOSHUA D. FREILICH
Doctoral Program in Criminal Justice; and Department of Criminal
Justice, John Jay College, City University of New York, New York,
New York; and National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and
Responses to Terrorism, University of Maryland, College Park,
Maryland, USA
GARY LAFREE
Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice; and National
Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism,
University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA
In this short essay, we introduce readers to a special issue of Terrorism and
Political Violence on criminological approaches to the study of terrorism. In
addition to summarizing the eight articles in the issue, we outline some general
points about the relationship between criminological thinking and our understanding
of terrorism. Our goal is to place the special issue’s contributions in context and
highlight under-explored issues that future research could address.
Keywords criminology theory, etiology of terrorism and radicalization, measure-
ment issues
This special issue of Terrorism and Political Violence focuses on criminological
approaches to the study of terrorism. Although there has been an explosive growth
in research on terrorism across the social and behavioral sciences in the past two
decades, much of this work has originated in political science, psychology, and eco-
nomics. Reviews of criminology and criminal justice research reveal that until recently
there have been few empirical tests of the major criminological theories in a terrorism
context.
1
This is surprising because terrorism clearly falls within the domain of crimi-
nology that has been defined as encompassing research on ‘‘the breaking of laws and
reactions to the breaking of laws.’’
2
As Clarke and Newman put it, ‘‘Terrorism is a
Joshua D. Freilich is affiliated with the Doctoral Program in Criminal Justice and the
Department of Criminal Justice, John Jay College, City University of New York; and the
National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, University
of Maryland. Gary LaFree is affiliated with the Department of Criminology and Criminal
Justice, University of Maryland; and the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism
and Responses to Terrorism, University of Maryland.
Address correspondence to Joshua D. Freilich, Doctoral Program in Criminal Justice,
John Jay College, City University of New York, Suite 2123, North Hall, 524 W. 59th Street,
New York, NY 10019, USA. E-mail: jfreilich@jjay.cuny.edu
Terrorism and Political Violence, 27:1–8, 2015
Copyright #Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0954-6553 print=1556-1836 online
DOI: 10.1080/09546553.2014.959405
1
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form of crime in all essential respects.’’
3
This special issue’s focus on criminological
theory and terrorism is unique. We begin by outlining some general points about
the relationship between criminological thinking and our understanding of terrorism.
The goal is to place the special issue’s contributions in context and highlight
under-explored issues that future research could address.
Although recently there has been an increase in studies that apply criminological
theories to terrorism (or test them in a terrorism context), not all of criminology’s
major theories have been equally engaged. Most criminological terrorism studies
to date have focused on neoclassical models like routine activities,
4
rational choice,
5
and situational crime prevention (SCP).
6
For example, past studies have examined
whether target hardening, such as metal detectors and increased inspections at air-
ports, or the use of statutes decrease terrorism through deterrence or incapacitation
or instead lead to increased terrorism through backlash effects.
7
There is thus a need for criminologists to broaden their inquiry to include
criminology’s other major frameworks like social learning, classic strain theories,
social control, life course, and psychological and biological perspectives. This special
issue takes a step in this direction and includes studies that focus on anomie=strain,
social disorganization, and routine activities frameworks that have rarely been
applied to terrorism.
Pisoiu’s qualitative study of seven jihadi and far-right case studies in Germany, for
instance, tests elements of criminology’s strain and sub-cultural perspectives. She finds
little support for the strain-based status frustration hypothesis. But her findings do
support the illegitimate opportunity structure thesis and certain sub-cultural claims
such as resistance, bricolage, homology, agency, and cultural cross-fertilization. Pisoiu
concludes that the violent extremists in her study were assertive and purposive agents
who strategically used the cultural arsenal available in the mainstream and=or other
subcultures, while at the same time being themselves influenced by contemporary style
preferences. She calls for a greater focus on individual agency and the (sub-)cultural to
improve understanding of individual involvement in political violence.
Chermak and Gruenewald use data from the United States Extremist Crime
Database to compare individual and contextual socio-demographic characteristics
across far-right, far-left, and jihadi extremists who committed violent crimes. They
identify similarities, but also many differences across these violent extremists on both
the individual and county levels. Importantly, Chermak and Gruenewald consider
whether these violent extremists, similar to more typical non-extremist offenders,
experience an identity crisis caused by the strain of wanting to achieve the goals of
society but having inadequate means to achieve them. Far-rightists were less educated
and less successful in the labor market, while jihadis may have been unable to inte-
grate fully into American communities. By contrast, Chermak and Gruenewald find
that members of far-left groups have the means to achieve the goals of American
society but conclude that the ‘‘American Dream’’ is dubious and harmful, especially
to the environment and=or other species. Chermak and Gruenewald highlight the
importance of considering the macro contexts in which terrorists choose to act. They
assert that future research would benefit from using criminological theories like social
disorganization to further explain the differences they observed.
Fahey and LaFree’s study addresses Chermak and Gruenewald’s last point by
examining the effects of a measure of country-level social disorganization on levels
of terrorist attacks and fatalities in 101 countries from 1981 to 2010. The authors
conceive of social disorganization as the presence of state instability: revolutionary
2 J. D. Freilich and G. LaFree
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and ethnic war, adverse regime change, and genocide. The classic social disorganiza-
tion perspective posits that individuals experiencing these types of rapid social changes
will be freed from the institutional and informal restraints that bind them to society
and keep them conforming to social norms and laws. The authors examine the
extent to which this reasoning applies to the number of terrorist attacks and fatalities
occurring in countries. Fahey and LaFree find that controlling for state capacity and a
wide variety of other variables, social disorganization is consistently associated with
increases in terrorist attacks and fatalities.
Meanwhile, Parkin and Freilich provide one of the few empirical studies on
the victims of terrorist attacks.
8
Most prior terrorism studies examine incidents or
perpetrators and ignore victims, assuming that they are a random selection of the
population and that there is no variation to explain. Using data from the Extremist
Crime Database, Parkin and Freilich compare the victims of two sets of homicides
committed by far-rightists: ideologically motivated homicides committed to further
far-right ideology (closely related to terrorism) and homicides committed for personal
reasons by far-rightists (ordinary crime). To explain this variation in victimization,
they apply and test several hypotheses from criminology’s routine activities and
lifestyle perspectives. Parkin and Freilich’s findings support their prediction that
the two victims groups’ routine activities differ, thus varying their exposure to
dangerous places and people.
More in keeping with past research, the other four studies in this special issue
examine aspects of deterrence and rational choice theory and situational crime
prevention perspectives. These studies engage a wide range of issues and also address
important gaps in the literature. Using data on six major initiatives meant to reduce
terrorist attacks by the Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) in Spain, Argomaniz and
Vidal-Diez replicate earlier research by LaFree, Dugan, and Korte that tested deter-
rence (based upon a rational choice model) and backlash frameworks applied to
attacks by the IRA in Northern Ireland.
9
Argomaniz and Vidal-Diez used survival
analysis to analyze data from the Global Terrorism Database and the Spanish
Ministry of the Interior. Similar to the LaFree, Dugan, and Korte study, their
findings mostly supported backlash interpretations.
Perry and Hasisi use criminology’s rational choice theory to analyze the motiva-
tions of jihadist suicide attackers. They argue that while suicide attackers engage in
self-destructive behavior, they are mostly driven not by altruistic motivation but by
the anticipation of future self-gratifying benefits. Perry and Hasisi conclude that there
is no fundamental difference between terrorist perpetrators’ motivations and those of
more ordinary criminals. Consistent with rational choice perspectives, both sets of
offenders are committed to maximizing self-gratifying, beneficial behavior.
Hsu and Apel extend the Perry and Hasisi analysis by empirically examining a
common critique of the SCP argument that we can reduce terrorism by manipulating
the opportunities that allow terrorist acts to succeed. The key criticism of SCP inter-
ventions is that they are ineffective because they only displace attacks to other loca-
tions, crime types, or perpetrators. Terrorism researchers refer to this displacement
critique as the ‘‘substitution effect.’’
10
Hsu and Apel investigate various forms of dis-
placement among terrorist groups that had been involved in aviation attacks prior to
the installation of airport metal detectors. Using data from the Global Terrorism
Database, their findings from interrupted time series models partially support SCP
claims and suggest a complex set of displacement and diffusion effects with respect
to alternative attack modes, target types, and weapon usage. Hsu and Apel’s study
Criminology Theory and Terrorism: Introduction to the Special Issue 3
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has important implications for policy makers as well as the conceptual literature in
criminology and terrorism studies.
Braithwaite and Johnson test three criminological perspectives to shed light on
the observed patterns of the incidence and contagion of recent insurgent attacks in
Baghdad, Iraq. Their analysis shows that risk heterogeneity arguments provide the
most compelling and consistent account of the location of insurgency. In particular,
violence is most likely at locations with higher population levels and density of roads
and more military garrisons.
Collectively the eight studies in this special issue break new ground by empiri-
cally testing criminological perspectives like social disorganization, routine activities,
and classic strain that have rarely been examined in a terrorism context. They also
address gaps in the examination of neo-classical approaches. These are important
steps but more needs to be done. Criminologists should empirically examine other
influential criminological theories like social learning, general strain, life course,
biological, and psychological approaches in a terrorism context.
And indeed some earlier work by criminologists suggests some promising
theoretical possibilities. Akers and Silverman crafted a conceptual piece extending
social learning theory to terrorism;
11
Black applied his theory of social control to
explain terrorism;
12
Hamm used social learning theory (and routine activities theory)
to understand the criminal successes and failures of terrorists;
13
Bouhana and
Wikstrom developed a situational action theory that they apply to both terrorist
attacks and ordinary crimes;
14
and Agnew extended his general strain theory to explain
terrorism.
15
However, with rare exceptions,
16
thus far there have been few efforts to
apply systematic empirical methods to test these theories with data on terrorism.
One reason for this lack of research could be due to data availability. In crimi-
nology, data on illegal behavior come traditionally from three sources, corresponding
to the major social roles connected to criminal events: ‘‘official’’ data collected by
legal agents, especially the police; ‘‘victimization’’ data collected from the general
population of victims and non-victims; and ‘‘self-report’’ data collected from offen-
ders (see also Parkin and Freilich in this issue).
17
All three of these sources are prob-
lematic when it comes to collecting data on terrorism. While police departments and
other criminal justice agencies gather vast amounts of detailed official data on com-
mon crimes in most countries, this is rarely the case for terrorism. Part of the difficulty
is differing definitions of terrorism across countries and even between different
agencies in the same country. Moreover, terrorist acts often cut across several more
common types of criminal categories. Thus, an assassination might be included in
police data as a homicide but not as terrorism while destruction of a building might
be included in a police report as arson but not as terrorism.
Victimization surveys have been of little use in the study of terrorism. Despite
the attention it gets in the media, terrorism is much rarer than more ordinary violent
crime. This means that even with extremely large sample sizes, few individuals in
most countries will have been victimized by terrorists. Frequently, victims of terror-
ism have no direct contact with perpetrators (e.g., in many bombings). And in many
cases, terrorism victims are killed by their attackers.
Self-report data on terrorists have been more important than victimization
data, but they also face serious limitations. Most active terrorists are unwilling to
participate in interviews. And even if willing to participate, getting access to known
terrorists for research purposes raises obvious challenges. Although there has been
important research based on self-reported behavior of terrorists or ex-terrorists,
18
this
4 J. D. Freilich and G. LaFree
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methodology is unlikely to ever be robust enough to provide global or even national
estimates.
However, as this special issue demonstrates, criminologists have gradually
developed creative new data sources for studying terrorism. Brent Smith
19
was an
early pioneer and his American Terrorism Study (ATS) database
20
provides a detailed
quantitative analysis of federal FBI terrorism cases. Three of the articles in this special
volume are based on the Global Terrorism Database, an open source database on
terrorist attacks drawn from the print and electronic media and originally collected
by criminologists LaFree, Dugan, and Miller.
21
And two of the articles in this special
volume are based on the Extremist Crime Database, an open source database on
extremist crime and terrorism in the United States originally collected by criminolo-
gists Freilich, Chermak, Belli, Gruenewald, and Parkin.
22
The growing availability of
data resources like these make it much more feasible for criminologists to provide
theoretical contributions to the literature on terrorism. Moreover, these efforts will
no doubt be aided by several years of support for research on radicalization to
extremist crime and terrorism by the U.S. National Institute of Justice.
23
As new data
sources are collected and made available, the ability of researchers to apply and test
traditional criminological theories is likely to grow as well.
As the number of empirical tests of criminological theories in a terrorism context
increases, criminologists should consider how to introduce their theories to the wider
audience of terrorism scholars. As noted, scholars from political science, psychology,
and economics have long engaged terrorism issues and have, not surprisingly, relied
upon conceptual models from their home disciplines. Some of the key constructs
in major terrorism and radicalization frameworks also appear in criminological
theories. Criminologists may thus want to begin synthesizing their frameworks with
other well-established radicalization and terrorism perspectives.
For example, McCauley and Moskalenko’s important radicalization theory sets
forth 12 mechanisms of radicalization operating at three levels: individual, small
group, and mass public.
24
They argue that these mechanisms are more likely to be
present in extremists who commit violent acts to further their ideology compared
to non-violent extremists who subscribe to the same ideology but do not engage in
crimes and instead only participate in legal acts. Two of the individual mechanisms
identified by McCauley and Moskalenko are personal and group grievances. Personal
grievances refer to individuals angered by government actions that harmed them or
their loved ones. Group grievances arise when an individual identifies with a group
that has been harmed by the government. Other prominent terrorist scholars argue
that humiliation and similar experiences lead to radicalization and violent acts.
25
Interestingly though, these emotions of anger and humiliation also play a major role
in criminology’s anomie and strain models such as Agnew’s general strain theory
which argues that stressed=strained individuals are more likely to offend.
26
Other mechanisms identified by McCauley and Moskalenko include ‘‘unfreezing,’’
which encompass life changes that cut individuals’ social connections and everyday
routines and leave them open to new connections.
27
Sageman’s study on individuals
who joined the global jihad similarly concludes that these Muslim migrants initially felt
unwelcome and disconnected to European societies.
28
They therefore sought out
mosques for companionship and acceptance. Subsequently, they met others like them
and together they joined the jihad and only then were taught and subscribed to extrem-
ist jihadist ideologies. Criminologists will recognize that some of these arguments
converge with control theories, emphasizing that individuals are more open to commit
Criminology Theory and Terrorism: Introduction to the Special Issue 5
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crime when they are less integrated into society.
29
Another mechanism highlighted by
McCauley and Moskalenko is thrill-seeking,
30
a concept that also appears in argu-
ments made by criminologist Jack Katz
31
and others
32
to explain more ordinary crime.
This discussion is not meant to be exhaustive and there are other examples of the
same or similar concepts playing a role in both criminological and terrorism or radi-
calization frameworks. To date though, there have been few attempts to integrate
these theories that share concepts into a single model that uses the same measures
and applies them to terrorism. As research increases in this area, it will also be impor-
tant to pay close attention to measurement issues to ensure that these theories are
properly tested. Similar to criminological research on regular crime and delinquency,
efforts must be made to operationalize the concepts from competing theories in
different ways. To take one example, various past terrorism studies (again similar
to prior criminological studies) have used the attribute of divorce as a measure of both
stress and a lack of social integration. Unless distinct measures are used to operatio-
nalize these competing concepts, it will be impossible to draw any conclusions about
which if any of these models are supported.
A separate but related issue is that collectively these models argue that the same
factor—be it strain, thrill, or lack of integration—is associated with both regular
crime and political violence. It is therefore important for future research to begin
clearly specifying why the same condition in some contexts results in terrorism, while
in others it is associated with regular crime. Past research has not entirely ignored this
issue but has only focused on it in passing.
33
In this regard the point resonates with a
classic of criminology history: Robert Merton’s anomie theory. According to Merton,
both deviant and non-deviant behavior can be predicted by examining whether indi-
viduals accept or reject cultural goals and the institutionalized means of achieving
them.
34
These two dimensions can be used to distinguish ordinary criminals (who
accept cultural goals but reject legitimate means to obtaining them) from those
who retreat into drugs (rejecting both cultural goals and legitimate means) and those
who commit terrorism or politically motivated violence (who are highly committed to
both cultural goals and legitimate means but not the goals and means of the existing
society).
A fundamental assumption of this volume is that both terrorism studies and
criminology benefit from a closer association between the two. While we readily
acknowledge important differences between common crime and terrorism, the simila-
rities in theoretical conceptualization, data collection, and research methods suggest
that both fields can advance by examining the theories and methods of the other. In
general, many of the differences between terrorism and common crime are no more
challenging than differences between common crime and more specialized forms of
deviance, such as organized crime, hate crime, or gang violence. Each has distinctive
features that require an investment of time and effort to better understand the sub-
stantive dynamics. By focusing on the obvious connections between terrorism and
crime, we may be able not only to contribute to a better understanding of terrorism,
but also to help formulate more rational policies for combating it.
Notes
1. Richard Rosenfeld, ‘‘Terrorism and Criminology,’’ in M. Deflem, ed., Terrorism and
Counter-Terrorism: Criminological Perspectives (New York: Elsevier, 2004), 19–32; Gary
LaFree and Gary Ackerman, ‘‘The Empirical Study of Terrorism: Social and Legal Research,’’
6 J. D. Freilich and G. LaFree
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Annual Review of Law and Social Science 5 (2009): 347–374; Brian Forst, Jack R. Greene, and
James P. Lynch, Criminologists on Terrorism and Homeland Security (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2011); Cynthia Lum and Leslie Kennedy, Evidence-Based Counterterrorism
Policy (New York: Springer-Verlag, 2012).
2. E. H. Sutherland and D. R. Cressey, Criminology, 10th ed. (Philadelphia: Lippincott,
1978), 3.
3. Ronald V. Clarke and Graeme R. Newman, Outsmarting the Terrorists (Westport,
CT: Greenwood, 2006), i.
4. Mark S. Hamm, Terrorism as Crime: From Oklahoma City to Al-Qaeda and Beyond
(New York: New York University Press, 2007).
5. Laura Dugan, Gary LaFree, and Alex R. Piquero, ‘‘Testing a Rational Choice Model of
Airline Hijackings,’’ Criminology 43, no. 4 (2005): 1031–1065; Graeme R. Newman and Henda Y.
Hsu, ‘‘Rational Choice and Terrorist Target Selection,’’ in Updesh Kumar and Manas Mandal,
eds., Countering Terrorism: Psychosocial Strategies (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2012), 227–249.
6. Rachel Boba, ‘‘EVIL DONE,’’ Crime Prevention Studies 25 (2009): 71–91; Clarke and
Newman, Outsmarting the Terrorists (see note 3 above); Susan Fahey, Gary LaFree, Laura
Dugan, and Alex Piquero, ‘‘A Situational Model for Distinguishing Terrorist and Non-
Terrorist Aerial Hijackings, 1948 to 2007,’’ Justice Quarterly 29, no. 4 (2012): 573–595; Joshua
D. Freilich and Steven M. Chermak, ‘‘Preventing Deadly Encounters Between Law Enforce-
ment and American Far-Rightists,’’ Crime Prevention Studies 25 (2009): 141–172; Joshua D.
Freilich and Graeme R. Newman, ‘‘Introduction,’’ Crime Prevention Studies 25 (2009): 1–7.
7. Walter Enders and Todd Sandler, ‘‘The Effectiveness of Anti-Terrorism Policies:
Vector Autoregression Intervention Analysis,’’ American Political Science Review 87, no. 4
(1993): 829–844; Gary LaFree, Laura Dugan, and Raven Korte, ‘‘The Impact of British
Counterterrorist Strategies on Political Violence in Northern Ireland: Comparing Deterrence
and Backlash Models,’’ Criminology 47 (2009): 501–530; William Alex Pridemore and Joshua
D. Freilich, ‘‘The Impact of State Laws Protecting Abortion Clinics and Reproductive Rights
on Crimes Against Abortion Providers: Deterrence, Backlash, or Neither?,’’ Law and Human
Behavior 31, no. 6 (2007): 611–627.
8. See also Daphna Canetti-Nisim, Gustavo Mesch, and Ami Pedahzur, ‘‘Victimization
from Terrorist Attacks: Randomness or Routine Activities?,’’ Terrorism and Political Violence
18 (2006): 485–501; Yariv Feniger and Ephraim Yuchtman-Yaar, ‘‘Risk Groups in Exposure
to Terror: The Case of Israel’s Citizens,’’ Social Forces 88 (2010): 1451–1462.
9. LaFree, Dugan, and Korte, ‘‘The Impact of British Counterterrorist Strategies on
Political Violence in Northern Ireland’’ (see note 7 above).
10. Walter Enders and Todd Sandler, ‘‘What Do We Know About the Substitution
Effect in Transnational Terrorism?,’’ in Andrew Silke, ed., Research on Terrorism: Trends,
Achievements and Failures (New York: Frank Cass, 2004), 119–137; Rob T. Guerette and Kate
J. Bowers, ‘‘Assessing the Extent of Crime Displacement and Diffusion of Benefits: A Review
of Situational Crime Prevention Evaluations,’’ Criminology 47 (2009): 1331–1368; Rene B. P.
Hesseling, ‘‘Displacement: A Review of the Empirical Literature,’’ Crime Prevention Studies 3
(1994): 197–230; Thomas A. Reppetto, ‘‘Crime Prevention and the Displacement Phenom-
enon,’’ Crime and Delinquency 22 (1976): 166–177.
11. Ron L. Akers and Adam Silverman, ‘‘Toward a Social Learning Model of Violence
and Terrorism,’’ in Margaret A. Zahn, H. H. Brownstein, and S. L. Jackson, eds., Violence:
From Theory to Research (Cincinnati: Lexis-Nexis Anderson, 2004), 19–35.
12. Donald Black, ‘‘The Geometry of Terrorism,’’ Sociological Theory 22, no. 1 (2004):
14–25.
13. Hamm, Terrorism as Crime (see note 4 above).
14. Noemi Bouhana and Per-Olof H. Wikstrom, ‘‘Theorizing Terrorism: A Scoping
Study,’’ Contemporary Readings in Law and Social Justice 2, no. 2 (2010): 9–79.
15. Robert Agnew, ‘‘A General Strain Theory of Terrorism,’’ Theoretical Criminology
14, no. 2 (2010): 131–153; see also Laura Dugan and Joseph K. Young, ‘‘Allow Extremist
Participation in the Policy-Making Process,’’ in Natasha A. Frost, Joshua D. Freilich, and
Todd R. Clear, eds., Contemporary Issues in Criminal Justice Policy: Policy Proposals from
the American Society of Criminology Conference (Belmont, CA: Cengage=Wadsworth, 2009);
Steven Rice and Robert Agnew, ‘‘Emotional Correlates of Radicalization and Terrorism,’’
in Jacqueline Helfgott, ed., Criminal Psychology (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2013): 215–226.
Criminology Theory and Terrorism: Introduction to the Special Issue 7
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16. Mally Shecory and Avital Laufer, ‘‘Social Control Theory and the Connection
with Ideological Offenders Among Israeli Youth During the Gaza Disengagement Period,’’
International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 52, no. 4 (2008):
454–473.
17. Gary LaFree, ‘‘Using Open Source Data to Counter Common Myths About
Terrorism,’’ in Brian Forst, Jack Greene, and Jim Lynch, eds., Criminologists on Terrorism
and Homeland Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 411–442.
18. John Horgan, ‘‘From Profiles to Pathways and Roots to Routes: Perspectives from
Psychology on Radicalization into Terrorism,’’ The ANNALS of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science 618, no. 1 (2008): 80–94.
19. Brent L. Smith, Terrorism in America: Pipe Bombs and Pipe Dreams (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1994).
20. Brent L. Smith and Kelly R. Damphousse, ‘‘Punishing Political Offenders: The Effect
of Political Motive on Federal Sentencing Decisions,’’ Criminology 34, no. 3 (1996): 289–321;
Brent L. Smith and Kelly R. Damphousse, ‘‘Terrorism, Politics, and Punishment: A Test of
Structural Contextual Theory and the Liberation Hypothesis,’’ Criminology 36, no. 1
(1998): 67–92.
21. Gary LaFree, Laura Dugan, and Erin Miller, Putting Terrorism in Context: Lessons
Learned from the Global Terrorism Database (London: Routledge, 2015).
22. Joshua D. Freilich, Steven M. Chermak, Roberta Belli, Jeff Gruenewald, and William
S. Parkin, ‘‘Introducing the United States Extremist Crime Database (ECDB),’’ Terrorism and
Political Violence 26, no. 2 (2014): 372–384.
23. National Institute of Justice, Research and Evaluation on Domestic Radicalization to
Violent Extremism (Washington, DC: United States Department of State, 2014).
24. Clark McCauley and Sophia Moskalenko, Friction: How Radicalization Happens to
Them and Us (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).
25. Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious
Violence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003); Jessica Stern, Terror in the Name
of God: Why Religious Militants Kill (New York: Harper Perennial, 2004).
26. Agnew, ‘‘A General Strain Theory of Terrorism’’ (see note 15 above).
27. McCauley and Moskalenko, Friction (see note 24 above).
28. Mark Sageman, Understanding Terrorist Networks (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2004).
29. Travis Hirschi, Causes of Delinquency (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1969).
30. McCauley and Moskalenko, Friction (see note 24 above).
31. Jack Katz, Seductions of Crime: Moral and Sensual Attractions of Doing Evil
(New York: Basic Books, 1988).
32. Timothy A. Brezina and Amie A. Aragones, ‘‘Devils in Disguise: The Contribution of
Positive Labeling to ‘Sneaky Thrills’ in Delinquency,’’ Deviant Behavior 25 (2004): 513–525.
33. McCauley and Moskalenko, Friction (see note 24 above).
34. Robert K. Merton, ‘‘Social Structure and Anomie,’’ American Sociological Review 3
(1938): 672–682.
8 J. D. Freilich and G. LaFree
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