What is the best approach for preventing recruitment to terrorism? Findings from ABM experiments in social and situational prevention

Abstract

This study uses agent-based models (ABMs) to compare the impacts of three different types of interventions targeting recruitment to terrorism-community workers at community centers; community-oriented policing; and an employment program for high-risk agents. The first two programs are social interventions that focus on de-radicalization and changing the dispositions of agents in the model, whereas the employment program focuses on "deflection" and represents a situational/opportunity reducing approach to prevention. The results show significant impacts of the community worker and community policing interventions on radicalization but no significant impact on recruitment. In contrast, the employment intervention had a strong and significant impact on recruitment, but little impact on radicalization.Policy Implications: Our ABM simulations challenge the reliance of existing programs to reduce recruitment to terrorism on counter and de-radicalization approaches. Instead they suggest that policy makers should focus more attention on deflection and opportunity reduction. At the same time, our ABMs point to the This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

Reducing cartel recruitment is the only way to lower violence in Mexico

“…To the best of our knowledge, this work represents the first scholarly attempt to mathematically quantify the size of the cartel population in Mexico and to compare policy scenarios intended to decrease violence in the country. Overall, our work advances the growing literature on mathematical and statistical simulations for studying complex criminal phenomena ( 28 – 30 ).…”

“…in the country. Overall, our work advances the growing literature on mathematical and statistical simulations for studying complex criminal phenomena (28)(29)(30).…”

Toward a Criminology of Terrorism

“…Agent-based modeling has been gradually gaining traction in criminology, and applications to terrorism are beginning to appear. A recent example is Weisburd et al (2022) who use agent-based models to compare the impacts of three different types of interventions targeting recruitment to terrorismcommunity workers at community centers; communityoriented policing; and an employment program for high-risk agents. The first two programs are social interventions that focus on deradicalization and changing the dispositions of agents in the model, whereas the employment program focuses on "deflection" and represents a situational-/opportunity-reducing approach to prevention.…”

Editors’ Introduction to the Special Issue of the Annals Dedicated to the Renowned Criminologist Professor David Weisburd

“…Together with Israeli colleague Badi Hasisi and European colleagues, Weisburd also led a Horizon 2020 grant on the processes leading to organized crime and terrorist networks, which has again contributed to the funding and training of Israeli criminology students (e.g. Hasisi et al 2019;Weisburd et al 2022;Wolfowicz et al 2019Wolfowicz et al , 2021.…”