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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 9:17 pm
Time: 9:17 pm
Results for security threat groups
1 results foundAuthor: Scott, Terri-Lynne Title: Assessing Susceptibility to Group-Based Influence Summary: Despite representing a relatively small percent of the total offender population, the presence of offenders with radical beliefs and ideologies is an area worthy of attention, particularly for the potential threat they pose both within the custodial context, as well as in the community upon release (Stys, McEachran, & Axford, 2016). Understanding the factors that put offenders at an increased risk of becoming engaged with a radicalized or other Security Threat Group (STG) is an important first step in being able to mitigate the risk they pose. The primary purpose of this study was to determine if an assessment of susceptibility to group-based influence among Canadian federal offenders was possible using administrative data collected upon intake. A total of 1,495 offenders admitted to custody between January 3, 2003 and August 17, 2014, with a validated Security Threat Group (STG) affiliation or identified as radicalized were combined to form the STG group for this study. A group of non-STG affiliated offenders comprised the comparison group (n = 14,754). The STG and comparison group were further split into a development and a validation sample. A total of 300 predictor variables comprised of indicators from the intake assessment were selected for analysis. The majority of the offenders in the study were male (94.0%). When disaggregated by groups most individuals in the radicalized group were categorized as ‘other’ ethnicity while the largest proportion of offenders in the other STG and comparison groups were Caucasian. Offenders in the STG group had the youngest mean age of 28.8 years, compared to the radicalized (M = 31.2 years) and comparison (M = 36.6 years) groups. A series of logistic regression analyses were used to reduce the number of predictor variables and identify items contributing to the prediction of the STG affiliation. The final model selected included items that clustered on the following categories: violence and victims, employment history, antisocial history and attitudes, and criminal history. Using simple summation to calculate an overall total score for all items, the AUC was .76 in the development sample, with only a small reduction in predictive accuracy demonstrated by an AUC = .74. These values are considered suggestive of a large effect size, meaning these items strongly predict and are related to being involved in an STG. The subscale with the highest predictive accuracy was antisocial associates and attitudes with an AUC value of .77 (development) and .76 (validation). The results of this preliminary work are promising and in a direction that is consistent with similar research in the field (e.g., Skillicorn et al., 2015). What remains to be determined is the best combination of factors that suggest a risk of being involved in a security threat group, and more specifically, involved with radicalized groups. Overall, the data available for this study lacked the precision needed to signal definitive areas of concern for vulnerabilities to specific group-based influence. The small sample identified as radicalized did not allow for disaggregated analysis. However, this study was an important first step in refining the notion of susceptibility and has identified a need to approach the measurement in a more operationalized and systematic way. Details: Ottawa: Correctional Service Canada, 2017. 54p. Source: Internet Resource: 2017 No. R-390: Accessed May 3, 2018 at: http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2017/scc-csc/PS83-3-390-eng.pdf Year: 2017 Country: Canada URL: http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2017/scc-csc/PS83-3-390-eng.pdf Shelf Number: 150046 Keywords: Homeland Security Radical Offenders Radicalization Security Threat GroupsTerrorism |