Understanding violent extremism: Socio-demographic, criminal and psychopathological background characteristics of detainees residing in Dutch terrorism wings
| Author | Gaby Thijssen,Erik Masthoff,Jelle Sijtsema,Stefan Bogaerts |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/17488958211049019 |
| Published date | 01 April 2023 |
| Date | 01 April 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/17488958211049019
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2023, Vol. 23(2) 290 –308
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/17488958211049019
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Understanding violent
extremism: Socio-
demographic, criminal
and psychopathological
background characteristics
of detainees residing in
Dutch terrorism wings
Gaby Thijssen
Penitentiary Institution Vught, The Netherlands
Erik Masthoff
Fivoor Academy of Research, Innovation and Development (FARID), The Netherlands
Jelle Sijtsema
Tilburg University, The Netherlands
Stefan Bogaerts
Fivoor Academy of Research, Innovation and Development (FARID), The Netherlands; Tilburg University,
The Netherlands
Abstract
In the past decades, Europe has been shocked repeatedly by terrorist crimes. This has led to an
influx of suspects and convicts of terrorism in the prison system. The aim of this study is to provide
insight into socio-demographic, psychopathological and criminal background characteristics of
convicted violent extremists. Retrospective analyses were conducted on primary source data
from 82 convicts in Dutch prison terrorism wings. Results showed that violent extremists are a
heterogeneous group regarding socio-demographic characteristics. About 60% of the population
Corresponding author:
Gaby Thijssen, Penitentiary Institution Vught, Lunettenlaan 501, 5263 NT Vught, The Netherlands.
Email: g.thijssen@dji.minjus.nl
1049019CRJ0010.1177/17488958211049019Criminology & Criminal JusticeThijssen et al.
research-article2021
Article
Thijssen et al. 291
had previously been convicted of ordinary crimes and a third suffered from a mental disorder.
To gain more insight into violent extremists, additional research is needed into motivational and
other risk factors. The latter is a necessary step to improve the identification, risk assessment,
and effective treatment of violent extremists.
Keywords
Criminal antecedents, psychopathology, socio-demographic characteristics, terrorism wings,
violent extremism
Introduction
Extremism is defined as the ideological motives of a person or group to seriously violate
the law to carry out activities that undermine the democratic constitutional state
(Nationaal Coördinator Terrorismebestrijding en Veiligheid (NCTV), 2020). There are
various definitions of terrorism (Doosje et al., 2016). In the current study, terrorism is
defined as committing lethal violence based on ideological motives, or causing societal
damage to property, with the aim of causing social undermining and destabilization, seri-
ously encouraging the population of a country or influencing political decision-making
(NCTV, 2020).
Extremist violence is a global problem, a crucial marker being the 9/11 attacks in
2001 in the United States in which nearly 2977 victims died and over 6291 were injured.
Europe as well has a substantial history of terrorist attacks with examples as the 1988
Lockerbie bombing in which 270 people were killed, the 2004 train attacks by Islamic
terrorists in Madrid with 191 fatalities and 2050 injured, and the six Islamic State attacks
in Paris in November 2015 in which 138 people died including the 7 extremists. In addi-
tion, a substantial number of Europeans joined terrorist organization IS in the armed war
in Syria and Iraq, whereby returnees of the war zone were considered suspected terror-
ists. With this, prison systems in Europe were confronted with a new influx of detainees
who were suspected or convicted of terrorism.
The Netherlands has also been regularly confronted with terroristic attacks since the
mid-twentieth century. Between 1950 and 2009, there were about 70 attacks that killed
about 30 people. Examples include train and aircraft hijackings in the 1970s and an
attack by the IRA in Roermond in 1990. Also, in 2004, filmmaker Theo van Gogh was
brutally murdered after he released a critical documentary about Islam. The investigation
of this crime led to the conviction of various members of a group of radical Muslim
youth, the so-called Hofstad-group. In order to prevent suspects or convicts of terroristic
activities from negatively affecting regular detainees, it was decided to place this group
of detainees in specialized and secluded terrorism wings (Veldhuis, 2015).
To prevent terrorist attacks as much as possible, more understanding is needed about
identification of potential extremists and prevention of violent (re)offending (Bakker,
2006; Borum, 2015; Duits et al., 2017). To address these needs, it is vital to gain more
insight into socio-demographic, psychopathological, and criminal background character-
istics of the current population of violent extremists (Bakker, 2006; Bazex et al., 2017;
Schulten et al., 2019; Van Leyenhorst and Andreas, 2017). As a starting point for the
current study, we briefly reflect below on what is known from previous research on vio-
lent extremists.
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