News Release

How can colleges better predict when a person's radical beliefs will turn to violence?

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

<i>Violence and Gender</i>

image: Violence and Gender is the only peer-reviewed journal focusing on the understanding, prediction, and prevention of acts of violence. view more 

Credit: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers

New Rochelle, NY, Dec. 4, 2017 - In a new study researchers reviewed numerous cases of extremist violence or terrorism and the published literature to develop a set of tools for colleges to use to assess the risk and reduce the potential for acts of violent extremism. The study, which identifies several risk factors linked to a person's transition from thinking about, planning, and actually implementing violence, is published in Violence and Gender, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Violence and Gender website.

The article entitled "An Exploration of the Risk, Protective, and Mobilization Factors Related to Violent Extremism in College Populations," is coauthored by Brian Van Brunt, EdD, The National Behavioral Intervention Team Association (Berwyn, PA), Amy Murphy, PhD, Angelo State University (San Angelo, TX), and Ann Zedginidze, MA, EdM, Columbia University (New York, NY). Among the thoughts and behaviors the researchers associate with mobilization to violence are feelings of injustice, a personal grievance, marginalization and perceived discrimination, and connection to extremists. They suggest that radicalism and extremism be viewed as a continuum. The authors provide a risk assessment model to help college behavioral intervention teams evaluate potential threats.

"This wonderful article on violent extremism in college populations is a classic piece of work for Violence and Gender because it provides both the theory as well as the application of risk, protective, and mobilization factors, allowing professionals in the field to determine where on a continuum the extremists and his/her threatening behavior can be plotted," says Editor-in-Chief Mary Ellen O'Toole, PhD, Forensic Behavioral Consultant and Senior FBI Profiler/Supervisory Special Agent (ret.) and currently, Director of the Forensic Sciences Program, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA.

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About the Journal

Violence and Gender is the only peer-reviewed journal focusing on the understanding, prediction, and prevention of acts of violence. Through research papers, roundtable discussions, case studies, and other original content, the Journal critically examines biological, genetic, behavioral, psychological, racial, ethnic, and cultural factors as they relate to the gender of perpetrators of violence. Led by Editor-in-Chief Mary Ellen O'Toole, PhD, Forensic Behavioral Consultant and Senior FBI Profiler/Criminal Investigative Analyst (ret.), Violence and Gender explores the difficult issues that are vital to threat assessment and prevention of the epidemic of violence. Violence and Gender is published quarterly online with Open Access options and in print, and is the official journal of The Avielle Foundation. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Violence and Gender (http://www.liebertpub.com/vio) website.

About the Publisher

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking and Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology. Its biotechnology trade magazine, GEN (Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 80 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.


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