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Unintended Negative Outcomes of Counter-Terrorism Policing: Procedural (in)Justice and Perceived Risk of Recruitment into Terrorism

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Understanding Recruitment to Organized Crime and Terrorism

Abstract

Since the terrorist attacks on 9/11 in New York and on 7/7 in London, many researchers have documented how local communities experience counter-terrorism measures. Evidence on these experiences has raised concerns that these measures might be counter-productive, increasing rather than reducing the risks of radicalisation and terrorism. Using an experimental vignette design, this study tests how the nature of counter-terrorism practices affects people’s perceptions of the risks of recruitment into terrorism. A national representative sample of Muslims in the United Kingdom was randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions showing (a) procedurally just street stops, (b) procedurally unjust street stops, (c) procedurally just counter-terrorism raid, or (d) procedurally unjust counter-terrorism raid. After reading the scenarios, participants completed a short questionnaire on the risk of terrorism recruitment. Procedurally unjust street stops were deemed to cause increased risks of radicalisation. However, there was no evidence that procedurally unjust counter-terrorism raids had similar unintended negative consequences. The implications of these results are discussed.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This is not the place for a discussion of conceptual differences. Yet, the point must be made that conceptual clarity is crucial to theory development and fruitful research. It is a mistake to attempt to settle conceptual challenges by recourse to complex statistical analyses (see Blumer 1954).

  2. 2.

    Augustyn argued that fair and respectful experiences might have led the adolescents to form the view that interactions with courts and the police were not ‘that bad’ and, therefore, future interactions are not to feared.

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Acknowledgement

This research was supported by funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement #699824.

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  1. Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Justice Tankebe

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  1. Justice Tankebe
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Correspondence to Justice Tankebe .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Criminology Faculty of Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

    David Weisburd

  2. Department of Criminology Law and Society, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA

    David Weisburd

  3. Transcrime, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy

    Ernesto U. Savona

  4. Institute of Criminology Faculty of Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

    Badi Hasisi

  5. Transcrime, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy

    Francesco Calderoni

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Tankebe, J. (2020). Unintended Negative Outcomes of Counter-Terrorism Policing: Procedural (in)Justice and Perceived Risk of Recruitment into Terrorism. In: Weisburd, D., Savona, E.U., Hasisi, B., Calderoni, F. (eds) Understanding Recruitment to Organized Crime and Terrorism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36639-1_5

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