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Introduction
Rationale, definitions and terminology
Examining timelines and the relationship between personal characteristics and incidents that have occurred in a person’s life has shown promising results that provide a more nuanced understanding of how people with extremist views opt to perform violent or non-violent action to achieve their goals (Keatley et al., 2021). For example, temporal analyses have been used to understand pathways into extremism (Keatley et al., 2021). The current study examined pathways into violent and non-violent extremism and the age at which perpetrators committed their first extremist offence.
The term “radicalisation”, within the terrorism literature at least, refers to the process whereby a person’s beliefs become increasingly extreme (compared with others) and may include support for the use of violence to achieve particular goals. For example, “Radicalisation is a process where people exposed to an overtly ideological message and belief system shift from moderate mainstream to extremist views” (Bartlett and Miller, 2012, p. 2). As such, radicalisation, in general, is neither problematic in itself nor is it illegal (Gartenstein-Ross et al., 2020). However, radicalisation which leads to support for, and the use of violence is problematic and potentially illegal. The UK Government states that: “Radicalisation is the process by which people come to support terrorism and violent extremism and, in some cases, then go on to participate in terrorist acts” (HM Government, 2011, p. 108). It is important to note that both definitions involve internal thought processes (such as attitudes and beliefs), and neither assume that radicalisation will necessarily lead to violent action. “Extremism”, however, is defined in the UK Government’s counter-terrorism strategy (“CONTEST”) as “vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs”. This definition proposes that internal thought processes will be externalised in some way – either vocalised or expressed via other behaviours. The terms “extremism” and “terrorism” are often used interchangeably (Nasser-Eddine et al., 2011; Striegher, 2015); however, violent extremism can be seen to be a wider, more encompassing category of outcomes compared to terrorism because it can refer to different types of ideologically motivated violence that may fall short of those that can be categorised as terrorism (United...