This article explains how to calculate thematic proximity within a mixed methods content analysis approach. Thematic proximity of two themes can indicate the presence of meta-themes. Meta-themes are themes which acquire their meaning through the systematic co-occurrence of two or more other themes. By combining qualitative and quantitative techniques of content analysis, the researcher can reveal these latent text patterns. Using a study on Jihadi media as a showcase, the article describes how to detect meta-themes through content analysis. To this end, the article introduces a novel theme-correlation coefficient that adds valuable information to traditional theme relation metrics. It enables researchers to make new empirical observations in text data.

This article investigates different types of fear of crime as predictors for punitive attitudes. Using data from a Germany-wide representative survey (n = 1272) it examines the reliability and validity of survey instruments through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and uses structural equation modeling (SEM) to explain variations in the level of respondents' punitive attitudes. The results show that different emotional and cognitive responses to crime have a distinctive effect on the formation of punitive attitudes. These effects vary significantly depending on socio-demographic factors and assumed purposes of punishment. A crucial observation of the study is that men's fear of crime works in a different way in the formation of punitive attitudes than women's fear of crime. The perceived locus of control for the crime threat is a possible explanation for this difference.

Violent extremism research is still lacking a sound empirical basis for the validation of assessment instruments. Yet there is a growing need for these instruments to assess the dangerousness of individuals, but also the success of interventions. By analysing prisoner files of one female and 39 male inmates (average age 28.83 years, SD = 7.58) with administratively assigned Islamism-related security labels in Bavarian prisons, we tried to clarify two questions: Firstly, is it possible to collect relevant data from prisoner files drawing on risk assessment procedures? Secondly, how do inmates associated with the Salafist scene (security label “Salafist scene”) differ from those who are apparently involved with terror networks (security label “terror”), and do these differences predict the risk they pose? Our results suggest that files are a valuable, though not perfect data source for individual assessment and research. The two groups defined by the labels differ significantly in their biographies, mental health, and behaviour. Conclusions pertaining to biographical background factors, risk assessment, and management are discussed.

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This article introduces some conceptual thoughts to the study of terrorism and provides answers to questions such as: can terrorism be studied like other crime phenomena? What are the conceptual and methodological challenges when framing terrorism as crime or military conflict? What are the epistemological consequences of studying a highly politicized object? What makes terrorist violence different from other forms of political violence such as guerrilla warfare and insurgency? For this purpose, in the first part of the article a review will be conducted to ascertain what criminologists have contributed to the conception of terrorism. In the second part a model of terrorism is elaborated that depicts the crucial parameters of this form of political violence and thereby bypasses some of the existing conceptual difficulties and misconceptions. We learn from the various definitions of terrorism that the singularity of terrorism has something to do with the victim, the purpose and the consequences of violence. Specifically the fact that terrorists are as indifferent to the various targets as they are to the various political consequences of their attack is what distinguishes terrorism from related phenomena of political violence.