Le phénomène de la radicalisation est devenu, au cours des deux dernières décennies, une préoccupation croissante pour une majorité des gouvernements dans les démocraties occidentales. Il est devenu en quelques années un cadre conceptuel des sciences sociales visant à mieux comprendre et à expliquer le phénomène de l’engagement dans l’extrémisme violent. Partant du début des années 2000 jusqu’en 2018, nous proposons « une enquête conceptuelle » dans le contexte contemporain des sociétés des démocraties libérales occidentales. Dans un premier temps, nous proposerons une analyse de l’émergence du terme radicalisation comme objet de connaissance. Ensuite, nous étudierons l’étude de la constitution d’un nouveau domaine d’expertise autour de ce terme. Afin d’y arriver, nous aurons recours à une analyse des principaux discours des experts qui ont défini ce domaine d'étude.

This research report is submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in partial fulfilment of the degree of Masters of Arts in Research Psychology

Due to an increasing concern about violent lyrical content in today's popular music, it was of interest to examine what groups of people enjoy listening to music containing an aggressive lyrical style. To simplify such a laborious project [due to the volume of people who enjoy music] the correlation between violent offender status and preference of music was studied and compared to a sample of college students. Forty participants (20 male violent offenders in a Florida State Correctional Facility and 20 male college students at the University of Central Florida) filled out a packet containing a Biographical Information Survey as well as a Violent Music Preference Assessment Questionnaire (VMPA). It was hypothesized that the violent offenders would prefer music with more violent lyrical content than the students. Surprisingly, The participants in both groups yielded similar musical tastes. There was no significant difference within the numerically judged predilections of the two groups.

Interpersonal violence and suicide are major health concerns, leading to premature death, extensive human suffering and staggering monetary costs. Although violent behaviour has multiple causes, it is well known that acute substance intake and abuse increase the risks of both interpersonal and self-directed violence. This association is quite well established for alcohol, while a more ambiguous literature exists for other common drugs of abuse. For example, anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS), synthetic analogues to the “male” sex hormone testosterone are suggested to elicit violent and aggressive behaviour. Two studies (I and III) in the present thesis addressed the association between AAS use and being suspected or convicted of a violent crime among remand prisoners and in a general population sample, respectively. Further, using the case-crossover design to control for confounders stable within individuals, I also investigated the triggering (short-term risk) effect of alcohol and drugs such as benzodiazepines and AAS, on violent crime (Study II). Finally, a fourth study (IV) based on a large national forensic sample of suicide completers (n=18,894) examined the risk of using a violent, more lethal, suicide method, when under acute influence of alcohol, central stimulants or cannabis. The results of this thesis suggested that AAS use in itself is not a proximal risk factor for violent crime; the observed risk is probably due to the co-occurrence of abuse of other substances. Alcohol is a strong triggering risk factor for violent crime, constant across males and females as well as individuals with or without behavioral and psychiatric vulnerability. Intake of high doses of benzodiazepines is associated with an increased risk for violent crime. Cannabis use is associated with an increased risk of using the lethal suicide method of jumping from a height. I conclude that mapping substance abuse patterns may inform violence risk assessment and treatment planning.

Thesis (MA(Criminology))-University of Pretoria, 2007. / Abstract in English and Afrikaans. Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Abstract Seasonal variations of events are apparently playing an important part in various psychiatric conditions. To study the seasonal variation of a condition appears to be one useful approach to clarify the aetiology of a mental disorder and phenomena to which mental disorders are associated. In the present study the seasonal variations of suicides during the period of 1980-95 (n=21279) and homicides during the years 1957-95 (n=4553) in Finland were analysed. In addition, the use of statistical techniques for seasonality and some important characteristics of study samples were evaluated from 44 original suicide seasonality studies published between 1970-97. Special attention was paid to statistical methods for seasonality and these were reviewed in the summary part of this dissertation. A statistically significant spring peak of suicides was found in both genders, in all age groups (aged 39 years or below, 40-64 years, and 65 years or more) and in violent (hanging, drowning, shooting, wrist-cutting, jumping from a height) and non-violent suicides (poisoning, gas, other methods). A secondary autumn peak of suicides was present in females and also associated with non-violent methods. The rate of violent suicides had increased significantly during 1980-90 and decreased thereafter, while the non-violent suicides had kept steadily increasing over the whole 16-year study period. The seasonal variation of violent suicides had remained stable and statistically significant over the whole study period, but the seasonality in non-violent suicides has diminished over time. The seasonal pattern of homicides showed a statistically significant peak in summer and a trough in winter. The observed rate of homicides was about 6% higher in summer and 6% lower in winter than expected under the null hypothesis of a uniform distribution. Both the crude numbers of homicide and the rate of homicides per 100 000 population increased significantly over the 39-year study period. The increasing rate of homicides in Finland was accompanied by decreasing homicide seasonality. The seasonal trends in homicides correlated significantly (positive correlation) with the seasonal trends in the violent suicides over the period of 1980-95. The use of particular statistical techniques was specified in the majority of the 44 reviewed suicide seasonality articles. This was considered as satisfactory, although in subgroup analyses and in comparisons of the seasonal pattern of suicides with phenomena other than suicides, researchers tended to interpret their study findings without a statistical significance test. In those 37 articles, which had actually examined the seasonal pattern of suicides with a statistical test, statistical methods varied from simple standard tests like the chi-square test (14 articles, 38%) to sophisticated time series analyses such as a spectral analysis (4 articles, 11%). The calendar effect (i.e. effect due to the unequal lengths of months and leap years) was reported to have been taken into account in only 10 out of 44 (22%) reviewed studies. The lack of reporting the size of a sample (12 articles, 27%) or monthly values of suicides (17 articles, 54%) was found to be a major deficit in the reviewed studies. On the basis of these findings it is recommended to carry out further surveys, which evaluate statistical content and use of statistical methods in published medical articles. These kinds of surveys remind researchers to consider more thoroughly methodological and statistical issues in their investigations.

Meanness and Disinhibition are two components of psychopathic personality, conceptualized by the Triarchic Psychopathic Model (Tri-PM). Psychopathic personality traits are related to criminal behavior. There is however, little research on how meanness and disinhibition relate to violent crime and non-violent crime. Data were drawn from a sample of college students and prison inmates (N = 1,787 mean age = 26.8 years). Meanness, disinhibition, violent crime and non-violent crime was measured using the Externalizing Spectrum Inventory ([ESI] Krueger et al., 2007). The results indicated that meanness and disinhibition explained 61% of the variance in violent crime and 77% of the variance in non-violent crime. Disinhibition had a stronger relation to both violent crime and non-violent crime. There was also a small, but significant interaction effect of meanness and disinhibition on violent crime and non-violent crime. The results support the theoretical outlines of the Tri-PM. Implications from these findings are that the ESI and the Tri-PM can be used risk assessment tools and in work related to crime prevention. Future research should in addition to meanness and disinhibition also include boldness from the Tri-PM and more severe violent types of crime in order to examine how these traits relate to intentions of violent- and non-violent crime. / Meanness och disinhibition ar tva komponenter av psykopatisk personlighet, konceptualiserad utifran The Triarchic Psychopahtic Model (The Tri-PM). Psykopatisk personlighet ar relaterat till brottsliga beteenden. Det finns dock lite forskning pa hur meanness och disinhibition relaterar till våldsbrott och ickevåldsbrott. Data drogs fran ett urval av universitetsstudenter och intagna i fangelse (N = 1 787 medelalder = 26,8 ar). Meanness, disinhibition, våldsbrott och ickevåldsbrott mattes med The Externalizing Spectrum Inventory ([ESI] Krueger et al., 2007). Variablerna analyserades med linjara multipla regressionsanalyser. Resultatet indikerade att meanness och disinhibition forklarade 61% av variansen av våldsbrott och 77% av variansen av icke-våldsbrott. Disinhibition hade en starkare relation till bade våldsbrott och icke-våldsbrott. Det fanns aven en liten, men signifikant interaktionseffekt for våldsbrott och ickevåldsbrott. Resultatet stodjer den teoretiska utgangspunkten fran Tri-PM. Implikationer fran dessa fynd ar att ESI och Tri-PM kan anvandas som riskbedomningsverktyg och brottsforebyggande syfte. Framtida forskning bor tillsammans med meanness och disinhibition aven inkludera boldness fran Tri-PM och mer grova typer av valdsamma brott for att undersoka hur dessa drag relaterar till olika avsikter for brott.

No description available.

This social constructionist program of inquiry begins to explore how psychopathy/the psychopath is constructed beyond the professional domain of forensic psychology. Indeed, while this highly important diagnostic construct is defined and operationalized very precisely by contemporary forensic psychologists, it is believed to be grossly and seriously misunderstood by others. Study 1 examines how Canadian mass newspaper (news) discourse represents psychopathy/the psychopath using ethnographic media analysis. This study rests on the central assumption that mass newspaper discourse provides a key window onto the public construction of reality. Study 2 examines how in-treatment, persistently violent male offenders (individuals with close ‘proximity’ to psychopathy) may conceptualize, experience, and approach (or not) the diagnostic construct, as gleaned through their conversational talk during small-size focus group interviews. The various ways in which these distinct (and contextually-bound) discourses align with and diverge from one another are identified. The various ways in which mass newspaper and offender focus group discourses align with and diverge from the contemporary forensic psychological construction of psychopathy/the psychopath are also discussed. Clinical, practical, and ethical implications of the research findings are also presented and discussed briefly.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Simon Fraser University, 2005. / Theses (Dept. of Psychology) / Simon Fraser University. Also issued in digital format and available on the World Wide Web.