Citation

Bhui KS, Hicks MH, Lashley M, Jones E. BMC Med. 2012; 10(1): 16.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group - BMC)

DOI

10.1186/1741-7015-10-16

PMID

22332998

PMCID

PMC3305506

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Very recent acts of terrorism in the UK were perpetrated by home-grown, well-educated young people, rather than by foreign Islamist groups; consequently, a process of violent radicalisation was proposed to explain how ordinary people were recruited and persuaded to sacrifice their lives. DISCUSSION: Counter-terrorism approaches grounded in the criminal justice system have not prevented violent radicalisation. Indeed there is some evidence that these approaches may have encouraged membership of radical groups by not recognising Muslim communities as allies, citizens, victims of terrorism, and victims of discrimination, but only as suspect communities who were then further alienated. Informed by public health research and practice, a new approach is proposed to target populations vulnerable to recruitment, rather than rely only on research of well known terrorist groups and individual perpetrators of terrorist acts. CONCLUSIONS: This paper proposes public health research and practice to guard against violent radicalization.

Language: en