I can only attest for some frontline police in the UK. Can't speak for all the rest. But it's a catch 22 for them. As long as the legislation requires the presence of ideology to justify certain powers, they can't move away from it.
Both can be true. It can be an ongoing structural feature and the emergence of a new label can also be a marker that the existing approaches don't work like they used to and that the current knowledge-base is insufficient for the present task.
Ideology is quite possibly the least useful dimension I can think of around which to organize an operational definition of extremist crime. Victimology, social ecology, behaviour, even motivation - any combination of these has to be more pertinent than ideology.
It's not even about whether it's explanatory (even if it's more often than not a marker of exposure, afaiac; like 'profiles' are markers of selection). It's about whether it gives the best leverage - the most actionable knowledge - in terms of prevention or disruption.
Scream it from the rooftops
(But I know this will not change anytime soon. Researchers and law enforcement and security services are obsessed with ideology as if it is somehow explanatory.)
If practitioners come up with new names and descriptions, it may very well be because they feel suddenly ill-equipped to deal with whatever they're facing. That the old tools and resources and structures and knowledge no longer do the job. That's what needs addressing.
I think it's changed. Especially in Canada. At Public Safety, the emphasis has been on agnostic risk assessment for a while.
Are we doing Old vs New Terrorism all over again? Because reified types are the problem, period.
The question remains: what motivates the emergence of the new categorical label?
Especially when it comes from frontliners. What do they experience that makes them want to call it something else?
Absolutely. This is exactly what's driving the new project and there'll be plenty of opportunities for outside input and lots of events in sane places - like Canada. :)
From discussions here, practitioners in law enforcement and Prevent have been deluged with cases that would never have been considered CT in the past, but there's no one else equipped, so they've inherited the baby with the bathwater.
(I saw your email after I'd come across the piece on bluesky.)
Noémie Bouhana
Noémie Bouhana
Noémie Bouhana
Noémie Bouhana
Noémie Bouhana
Noémie Bouhana
Noémie Bouhana
Noémie Bouhana
Noémie Bouhana
Jess Davis
Ideology is quite possibly the least useful dimension I can think of around which to organize an operational definition of extremist crime. Victimology, social ecology, behaviour, even motivation - any combination of these has to be more pertinent than ideology.
