Citation

Corner E, McEwan T, Logan C. Front. Psychol. 2023; 14: e1177705.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, Frontiers Research Foundation)

DOI

10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1177705

PMID

37251068

PMCID

PMC10213951

Abstract

Acts of extreme or mass violence perpetrated by lone individuals have become increasingly common in liberal democracies over the past 20 years. Despite an enduring interest in violent extremism, there remains a lack of consistency in the demographic, ideological, and psychological profiles of the perpetrators of these incidents as a whole. Some of these acts have been described as politically motivated terrorism, whilst others have been attributed to mental illness or criminal intent. However, there is an increasingly common view that the distinction between political ideology, criminal intent, and personal motivations is often blurred (Böckler et al., 2018; Clemmow et al., 2022) and that the violence carried out by these individuals is better understood using the broader concept of grievance-fueled violence. Grievance-fueled violence is not just a theoretical construct. Multi-agency teams of specialist police and mental health clinicians have been established in Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom to help mitigate the threat presented by lone individuals with complex grievances (Pathé et al., 2018).

A major focus of each article in this issue is the potential for benefits in the conceptual shift from siloed areas of research focusing on terrorism, mass murder, fixation, hate crimes, fatal family violence, and incel-related violence to the unifying concept of grievance-fueled violence. For example, Ebbrecht and Lindekilde argue through their case study of the Aarhus University shooting that the nuances in offender motivation can be lost when such violent acts are classified in traditional typological frameworks. Sizoo et al. lend further support, noting that although the current explanatory frameworks were conceptualized to understand the specific forms of violence, new acts of violence by lone offenders suggest that the current frameworks may not be completely satisfactory. And James et al. and Cooper et al. contend that, given this, the adoption of a grievance-fueled violence framework would allow the application of insights gained in the study of one form of offense to be applied to others.

Current research on this topic is characterized by its diversity. The papers in this topic explore a range of offense types and apply the concept of grievance-fueled violence to better understand the underlying motivations of offenders. Binder and Kenyon situate online radicalization to terrorism within the wider context of attitudes and beliefs that develop from grievance, arguing that the evolving threat environment may be better understood under the concept of grievance-fueled violence. Alberda et al. emphasize how the concept of grievance may offer insight into risk and protective factors found across terrorist offenders. Higgs et al. critically examine the scope of grievance in the context of sexual violence, arguing that the examination of sexually harmful offenders may offer deeper insight into the development of grievance-fueled violence...

Language: en

Keywords

mental health; offending; violence; grievance; security