Social media and online environments have become an integral part of society, allowing for self-expression, information sharing, and discussions online. However, these platforms are also used to express hate and threats of violence. Violent threats online lead to negative consequences, such as an unsafe online environment, self-censorship, and endangering democracy. Manually detecting and moderating threats online is challenging due to the vast amounts of data uploaded daily. Scholars have called for efficient tools based on machine learning to tackle this problem. Another challenge is that few threat-focused datasets and models exist, especially for low-resource languages such as Swedish, making identifying and detecting threats challenging. Therefore, this study aims to develop a practical and effective tool to automatically detect and identify online threats in Swedish. A tailored Swedish threat dataset will be generated to fine-tune KBLab’s Swedish BERT model. The research question that guides this project is “How effective is a fine-tuned BERT model in classifying texts as threatening or non-threatening in Swedish online environments?”. To the authors’ knowledge, no existing model can detect threats in Swedish. This study uses design science research to develop the artifact and evaluates the artifact’s performance using experiments. The dataset will be generated during the design and development by manually annotating translated English, synthetic, and authentic Swedish data. The BERT model will be fine-tuned using hyperparameters from previous research. The generated dataset comprised 6,040 posts split into 39% threats and 61% non-threats. The model, NOVA, achieved good performance on the test set and in the wild - successfully differentiating threats from non-threats. NOVA achieved almost perfect recall but a lower precision - indicating room for improvement. NOVA might be too lenient when classifying threats, which could be attributed to the complexity and ambiguity of threats and the relatively small dataset. Nevertheless, NOVA can be used as a filter to identify threatening posts online among vast amounts of data.

This study assesses the problem of youth radicalization and violent extremism in the northeast region of Nigeria. The study aimed to identify and explain the major factors that make these youths in the region vulnerable to the radical ideologies of Boko Haram, how these factors have interacted and resulted in them being sympathetic to terrorism in the region or being actively involved in the act. With these factors in mind, the study also aimed to critically access the government’s non-militarized response to violent extremism in order to ascertain whether or not these factors that have lured the youths into violent extremism in the first place have been taken into consideration in the design and implementation of such programs. Designed as a case study, the study relies on secondary data for its analysis and finds that poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, the almajeri system of Islamic education, and strong religious beliefs have been major risk factors for radicalization in the region. Also, findings show that the government’s deradicalization programs are flawed in their design and implementation, do not aim to address the root causes of radicalization into extremism, and give preferential treatment to repentant terrorists at the expense of the actual victims. I conclude by arguing that deradicalization in the region is in some way having a counter-effect (serving as an incentive for people to get radicalized into extremism) and also recommend further research on this with a possible comparative focus on other deradicalization programs in the country, past and present.

The purpose of the study was to examine whether a potential juror would give harsher sentences to defendants based only on the manipulation of the defendant's personal hobby. This was investigated by manipulating the hobby through a hypothetical manslaughter scenario in a vignette. Participants were asked to answer questions pertaining to the defendant's guilt and potential sentencing. Results indicate that participants' sex, participants' authoritarianism, and defendant's hobby were significant factors. Significant interactions were found pertaining to whether the defendant should receive counseling across sex by violence and sex by avocation. These results are evidence that the use of jurors in the legal system is flawed and needs to be improved upon. Future research should examine an age distribution closer to the national mean, and the online setting should be replaced with an in person mock jury that will have more realistic group dynamic and higher ecological validity.

A holistic approach to Counter Violent Extremism (CVE) in the Internet Environment and Social Media is essential. This thesis focuses on gender and context consideration in online approaches to CVE through use of a literature review and samples of online counter-narrative campaigns. This has led to determination of the extent to which gender and context have been considered in online approaches to CVE and identifying what they mean for CVE online, while highlighting full participation of women in online approaches that are aimed at countering violent extremism as well as the critical role of contextual factors in online approaches to CVE. In addition, the thesis shows that more research is needed to fill the gaps identified. These gaps are the role of women in online CVE campaigns as well as contextual factors that are associated to violent extremism. More so, online narratives should be all rounded since this study found that CVE narratives have failed to identify a predictable psychosocial trajectory to explain de-radicalization processes that are crucial to disengage radicals.

It is important to direct resources to effective evidence- and value-based counter-radicalization strategies, especially within prisons. With the increasing threat ofviolence and terror from various violent extremist groups, such as Daesh, thefocus on prisons should be intensified. While radicalization within prisons was nota significant problem a decade ago, the new recruitment strategies from e.g.Daesh now pose a new challenge for prisons. This thesis identifies contemporaryliterature on radicalization, deradicalization, and violent extremism within aprison context. From this seven recurrent themes were identified: overcrowding,religious chaplains, sectioning, risk assessment, monitoring and supervision,rehabilitation programs and education of staff. This was then used to develop anassessment model, which was based on the Canadian Risk-Need-Responsivitymodel’s three core principles, for evaluating and conducting counterradicalizationstrategies. The assessment model was then used as a framework fora comparative analysis of the Danish and Swedish Prison and Probation Services’counter-radicalization strategies within prisons. The results show that bothcountries adhered to a degree to the assessment model and current literaturewithin the field. The results further reveal that there is a lack of empiricalevidence and data on radicalization and counter-radicalization within prisons, andthat the data available is somewhat outdated.

Criminal violence is one of the most serious challenges in contemporary Latin America. While the drug economy -- which sparked much of the violence -- developed later in the 20th century, the institutions which shape contemporary vulnerability have deep historic roots. In this dissertation, I study three informal institutions: systematic corruption in the security sector, traditional governance institutions, and patriarchal norms, all of which have consequences for contemporary violence and vulnerability. In combining these essays, I aim to uncover some of the historical and social origins of contemporary variation in criminal violence and vulnerability. The first paper examines systematic corruption in the security sector. I ask: why did Mexico's strong and enduring civilian autocratic regime fail to reform a military riddled with corruption? I argue that the regime's reliance on the military for political control and repression created openings for the military to act corruptly when the center state was faced with political threats. I use an original data-set of military-landlord paramilitaries under the Cárdenas administration to show that where the regime faced greater political threat, military officials abused their power to profit from collusion with landed elites. Tracing these dynamics through to Mexico's dirty war, I find that the presence of these militaries in the 1970s is associated with higher levels of excess repression, suggesting enduring consequences of these collusive agreements for military professionalization. The second paper examines collaborative governance institutions -- created in Mexico's land reform -- as a source of variation in contemporary vulnerability to criminal violence. Each major land reform in Latin America was accompanied by the creation of collective institutions to administer redistributed land and govern beneficiary communities of land reform. However, little is known about the long term consequences of these administrative institutions. I advance a theory which argues that administrative institutions which enable the preservation of indigenous governance traditions can facilitate collective action capacity, which yields security dividends by empowering communities to respond strategically and collectively to criminal threat. I leverage insight from two months of in-depth, interview-based fieldwork in Michoacán, Mexico, combined with a difference-in-difference design to uncover the consequences of institutional variation in Mexico's land reform for vulnerability to criminal violence and criminal presence. In line with theoretical expectations, I find that land reform communities which preserve traditions of indigenous governance generate security in the context of Mexico's drug war. These findings have important implications for a vast literature which studies the relationships between violence and property rights, as well as for studies of rural security. The final paper studies the relationship between social inequality and criminal victimization, focusing on hierarchies created and upheld by patriarchal norms. I advance a theory of intersectional vulnerability to criminal violence, arguing that the same traditional structures which enable high collective action and social control of criminal violence can also lead to the preservation of stronger patriarchal norms. I suggest that these strong patriarchal norms lead to more criminal victimization of women relative to men. In patriarchal contexts, women's relative vulnerability is increased by community failure to apply social control to protect women from criminal violence, and exacerbated by women's lack of recourse due to their political exclusion. I test this theory empirically in the context of the Mexican drug war. I use an original measure of patriarchal norms drawn from household surveys on gender roles to identify empirical associations between traditional social structures and higher levels of patriarchal norms pre-drug war. Exploiting the shock of the onset of the drug war, I find that higher levels of patriarchy pre-drug war lead to substantially greater increases in women's victimization relative to men's following the onset of the war. I find strong evidence that this victimization is non-domestic, reflecting how community control of violence fails to protect women from criminal victimization, and that women are most at risk when they are politically excluded. These findings speak to how social and political inequalities shape vulnerability to criminal violence, particularly in contexts where the state fails to provide security. Together, these papers highlight the complex layering of informal institutions which shape contemporary welfare in the context of widespread criminal violence.

People receiving treatment for substance use disorders (SUD) are at risk of justice involvement. Although it is well-established that borderline personality disorder (BPD) increases risk for criminal involvement, it is unclear whether this relationship exists among people with SUDs. Furthermore, prior research has found sex and race differences in the relationships between BPD and justice involvement as well as violence, but these moderators have not been explored within a substance using sample. The current study utilized a sample receiving SUD treatment to examine whether BPD is associated with prior violent charges and, if race and sex moderated this relationship. Results indicated that presence of BPD was associated with violent charges, and there may be sex differences in this relationship (OR = 4.04, 95% CI = .90; 18.18, p = .069). This study contributes to knowledge of how BPD increases risk for violent charges among people receiving SUD treatment.

In recent years urban violence has become understood as a 'reproduced', multi-causal and socially generated phenomenon. Less is understood about why young men reproduce the majority of this violence. This thesis uses original empirical data based on thirty-two life-histories of youths living in two poor and violent neighbourhoods in Medellín, Colombia. It argues that urban violence is reproduced by male youths because it is linked to 'masculinity'; that is, the process of 'becoming men' where youths strive to fulfil productive or 'successful' models of masculinity. These processes are related to contexts of poverty, inequality and exclusion, so this thesis does not reduce the generation of urban violence to masculinity alone. Rather, understanding masculinity provides us with further insight into the reproduction of violence. This thesis further argues that male youths are disposed by their habitus - after Pierre Bourdieu - to negotiate a pathway to manhood that largely reflects traditional masculine values in their context. Striving to achieve prevailing versions of manhood contributed to some of these youths joining armed groups, such as gangs. The gang acted as a mechanism to fulfil their dispositions to become men, by providing them with a way to perform a version of 'successful' masculinity. This is prevalent in urban contexts of exclusion and high levels of social violence, because there are limited opportunities to achieve legal and dignified versions of manhood, whilst there are significant opportunities to join the local gang. The youths interviewed that did not join gangs tended to come from families that taught them to reject violence at a young age, whilst supporting them in pursuing alternative pathways to manhood. Youths that joined gangs tended to have more problems at home and often had family members already in gangs. / ESRC, and University of Bradford

no / This book is an invitation to reflect on the dangers that threaten the stability, security and world peace. The authors point to climate change, competition for natural resources, the gap between rich and poor and the proliferation of military technologies as factors capable of triggering violent conflict, civil unrest and destabilization of international order in the near future if immediate measures are not taken. From a rigorously researched analysis, then present strategies and sustainable alternatives to build a more cooperative, fair and conscious future. A book that promises to change the way you view the world.

Outrages committed during violent conflict and as part of the 'war on terror' are not only an affront to human dignity -- they also violate the Geneva Conventions. This book examines recent high-profile cases of repeated and open abuse of the Conventions. The contributors explore why these and related violations of international humanitarian law cannot be viewed as anomalies, but must be regarded as part of a pattern which is set to undermine the Geneva Conventions as a whole. The contributors argue that an international system in which there is diminishing legal restraint on the use of force means that the world will become less secure and more volatile, even for those in the most powerful countries. Individuals everywhere face the prospect of a horrifying vulnerability. This is the first scholarly yet accessible work to consider the meanings of outrages such as the normalisation of torture, as well as the worrying new normative, technical and tactical developments that challenge the purpose and standing of the Geneva Conventions.