The Politically Motivated Violent Offender

Abstract

Political violence has been a consistent problem in many western European nations since the 1960s. This has been despite the fact that these states were already, or have subsequently become, pluralist liberal democracies. Inevitably if a person, whether individually or as part of a greater social movement, chooses to use political violence within such societies it is necessary that the state seek to defend the general population from such violence — regardless of whether the motivating reason behind such violent acts is political rather than personal. The state’s response to crime can be generally divided into three stages — those of order, criminal justice and penal policy. Order generally involves those aspects of security policy, including issues such as policing, which deal with the actual confrontation between the state and the dissidents. This part of the state’s response concentrates on the period before, during and after an actual crime or conspiracy but ends when a person has been charged. Criminal justice is the next stage, after a suspect has been charged, and involves the judicial investigation of a crime and the assessment of the guilt or innocence of the accused. Penal policy is the post-trial stage of the state’s treatment of political crime and it is this area that will be examined.