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The Lone-Actor Terrorist and the TRAP-18 Journal of Threat Assessment and Management © 2016 American Psychological Association 2016, Vol. 3, No. 1, 37–52 2169-4842/16/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/tam0000061 The Lone-Actor Terrorist and the TRAP-18 J. Reid Meloy Paul Gill University of California, San Diego University College London An open source sample of 111 lone-actor terrorists from the United States and Europe were studied through the lens of the Terrorist Radicalization Assessment Protocol (TRAP-18). This investigative template consists of 8 proximal warning behaviors and 10 distal characteristics for active risk management or active monitoring, respectively, by national security threat assessors. Several aspects of criterion validity were tested in this known outcome sample. Seventy percent of the terrorists were positive for at least half or more of the indicators. When the sample was divided into Islamic extremists, right-wing extremists, and single-issue terrorists, there were no significant differences across all 18 indicators except for 4. When the sample was divided according to successful versus thwarted attackers, the successful attackers were significantly more fixated, creative, and innovative, and failed to have a prior sexually intimate pair bond. They were significantly less likely to have displayed pathway warning behavior and be dependent on a virtual community of likeminded true believers. Effect sizes were small to medium (␾ϭ0.190–0.317). The TRAP-18 appears to have promise as an eventual structured professional judgment risk assessment instrument according to some of the individual terrorist content domains outlined by Monahan (2012, 2016). Keywords: terrorism, mass murder, targeted violence, threat assessment, risk assessment Lone-actor terrorism is considered a major Efforts to counter such violence, and to dis- national security threat in both North America tinguish between those who have the legally and Europe. Although the focus has been on protected right in democracies to have extreme violent Islamic jihadists, and most recently both beliefs from those who intend to act violently on recruitment and attacks by individuals inspired their extreme beliefs, have, in part, focused by ISIS, such threats come from the extremes, upon risk assessment of such individuals. The regardless of ideology. As Blaise Pascal wrote Terrorist Radicalization Assessment Protocol over three centuries ago, “les extremes se (TRAP-18) is an attempt to advance these ef- touchent,” the extremes meet (Paul, 1905, p. forts. 22). For example, despite the inordinate atten- Over the past 40 years there has been a slow tion paid to jihadist violence in the United and steady evolution in the understanding of the States, there have been an almost equal number individual terrorist, both theoretically and em- of murders by individuals from the extreme pirically (Gill, 2015; Simon, 2013; Sageman, right when compared to jihadists since Septem- 2008). The past few years in particular have ber 11, 2001, and twice as many attacks by the This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. seen a burgeoning of empirical studies, many of extreme right (New America Foundation, This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. them challenging earlier theoretical misconcep- 2016). tions concerning the lone terrorist, such as the absence of mental disorder or socioeconomic deprivation (Borum, Fein & Vossekuil, 2012; J. Reid Meloy, Department of Psychiatry, University of Brynielsson et al., 2013; Borum, 2014; Bergen, California, San Diego; Paul Gill, Department of Security 2016; Cohen et al., 2014; Corner & Gill, 2015; and Crime Science, University College London. Gill, Horgan, Hunter, & Cushenbery, 2013; Correspondence concerning this article should be ad- Gruenewald, Chermak, & Freilich, 2013; Gill, dressed to J. Reid Meloy, Department of Psychiatry, Uni- versity of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Horgan, & Deckert, 2013; Gill, 2015; Horgan, Jolla, CA 92093. E-mail: [email protected] 2005, 2008; Hamm & Spaaj, 2015; Meloy, 37 38 MELOY AND GILL 2011b; Meloy & Yakeley, 2014; Sageman, a structured professional judgment instrument 2008; Spaaij, 2012; Simon, 2013; Weenink, specific to terrorism: 2015). Such work has contributed to the devel- From the existing research, therefore, it appears that opment of three published structured assess- none of the four overlapping dimensions of the risk of ment instruments for the coding of behaviors for common violence identified by Kroner et al. (2005)— terrorist risk, including the Violent Extremist criminal history, an irresponsible lifestyle, psychopa- Risk Assessment (VERA; Pressman, 2009) thy and criminal attitudes, and substance abuse— characterize those who commit violent terrorism. In modeled after the HCR-20 (see Douglas et al., addition, there is little empirical evidence supporting 2013 for the newest version 3), the Multi-Level the validity of other putative risk factors for terrorism Guidelines for the Assessment and Manage- beyond what is already obvious (i.e., age, gender, and ment of Group-Based Violence (MLG; Cook et perhaps marital status). Indeed, the strongest empirical al., 2013), and the Extremism Risk Guidelines findings are entirely negative: terrorists in general tend not to be impoverished or mentally ill or substance (ERG 22ϩ; Lloyd & Dean, 2015). Other coding abusers or psychopaths or otherwise criminal; suicidal tools have proliferated among various law en- terrorists tend not to be clinically suicidal. In no society forcement and security agencies in both North studied to date have personality traits been found to America and Europe, some of them classified, distinguish those who engage in terrorism from those but without the requisite peer-reviewed research who refrain from it. (Monahan, 2012, p. 179) to demonstrate their scientific reliability and The purpose of this study is to present an validity before being operationally utilized. investigative template which may eventually Such criticism, however, must also acknowl- provide a reasonable assessment of risk of lone- edge the compelling need for intelligence gath- actor terrorism, based upon the recommenda- ering in a world where a heightened awareness tions of Monahan (2012, 2016) and incorporat- of risk is ubiquitous (Meloy & Hoffmann, ing work on proximal warning behaviors for 2014). targeted violence (Meloy, 2011a; Meloy et al., In response to these needs, Monahan (2012) 2012) and distal characteristics of the lone ter- articulated the present state of the science con- rorist (Meloy & Yakeley, 2014). The proximal cerning the “conceptual and methodological warning behaviors, a typology derived from the challenges” that must be surmounted to advance threat assessment literature (Meloy, Hoffmann, the risk assessment of individual terrorism. He Guldimann, & James, 2012; Meloy & Hoff- elaborated upon four problems: (1) the need for mann, 2014), have been found to have ecolog- clarity as to what is being assessed; (2) the ical validity across a range of targeted violence likely usefulness of structured professional domains, such as public figure attackers and judgment; (3) the identification of robust risk school attackers, both in the United States and factors within four domains: ideologies, griev- Europe (Hoffmann et al., 2011; Meloy, Hoff- ances, affiliations, and moral emotions; and (4) mann, Roshdi, Glaz-Ocik, & Guldimann, 2014; the very low probability of prospective valida- Meloy, Hoffmann, Roshdi, & Guldimann, tion. In a follow-up chapter, Monahan (2016) 2014). They have also shown postdictive valid- reported on the positive advances since his ear- ity when discriminating between German lier paper, and added the domain of “identities” school shooters and other students of concern to his four domains of risk. However, he also with no intent to attack (Meloy, Hoffmann, noted the continued stagnation in terrorism re- Roshdi, & Guldimann, 2014). The distal char- This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. search due to the lack of political will to bring acteristics are based upon the psychosocial re- This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individualtogether user and is not to be disseminated broadly. the academic and intelligence commu- search concerning lone-actor terrorism con- nities. He posited that the most realistic research ducted during the past decade (Borum, Fein & endeavors will be “known outcome” studies Vossekuil, 2012; Borum, 2014, 2015; Corner & where comparisons are made between those Gill, 2015; Gill et al., 2013; Gruenewald et al., who have and have not carried out terrorist acts 2013; Gill, 2015; Hamm & Spaaij, 2015; Sage- on putative risk factors. man, 2008; Spaaij, 2012; Simon, 2013) as well Monahan (2012) furthermore noted in a com- as the original psychodynamic formulations of parison of the general criminal violence risk the authors (Meloy & Yakeley, 2014). One research and the terrorism research that there is study has found these distal characteristics to little overlap, necessitating the development of have some criterion validity, and good to excel- LONE-ACTOR TERRORIST AND TRAP-18 39 lent interrater reliability, in a small sample of by police officers and adherents of the Patriot European individual terrorists (Meloy, Roshdi, Movement) and religious ideologies (e.g., a re- Glaz-Ocik & Hoffmann, 2015). This rationally ligious
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