1st Edition
A Forensic Approach to Political and State Violence Uncertainty, Ambiguity and Risk
Contents
Series foreword
Preface
Chapter 1 Aggression and Violence
Violence
Focussing on physical force and physical injury
Violence and aggression
Elements of violence
What violence is not
The importance of good definition
Summary and conclusions
Chapter 2 Defining political violence
Terrorism, insurgency, guerrilla war and hybrid war
Legal definitions of terrorism
Problems with legal definitions of terrorism
Who should define terrorism?
Other approaches to definition
Summary and conclusions
Chapter 3 State violence and terrorism
Long term tensions in the idea of the state
Misunderstanding the state
The future of the state
International law and state terrorism
State terrorism and state violence
Difficulties identifying state terrorism
Possible impacts of human rights on state violence
Summary and conclusions
Chapter 4 Responses to politically motivated violence – the UK example
Politically motivated violence and political accountability
Some legislative milestones
Current UK policy responses
Criticisms of UK policy
Summary and conclusions
Chapter 5 Psychological profiling
A brief history
Current practice in psychological profiling
Developments in profiling
The accuracy of profiling
Applying profiling to politically motivated violence
Profiling behaviour in politically motivated hostage incidents
Evaluation
Summary and conclusions
Chapter 6 Risk, ambiguity, uncertainty and intractability
Key concepts
Risk assessment
Current practice in risk assessment
Cargo cult science
Going back to basics
Improving practice
Ecological rationality and better decision making
Keeping things simple
Using heuristics to cope with politically motivated violence
Summary and conclusions
Concluding thoughts
Index
Biography
David Crighton is Professor of Forensic Psychology at Durham University, UK. He was previously Acting Chief/Deputy Chief Psychologist at the Ministry of Justice, UK.
