Youth Recruitment and Mobilization to Violence
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Project Summary
Foreign terrorist organizations and online networks that recruit through coercion and exploitation are increasingly targeting adolescents and young adults, yet nearly all existing risk and behavioral threat assessment tools were built on adult populations and may not transfer to a developmental period marked by identity formation, peer influence, and impulsivity. Following a first year spent scoping the problem with international partners, this project turns to generating original evidence through two parallel workstreams.
Method
This project uses a variety of methods, including content coding of cases involving charged and convicted individuals, surveys, focus groups, and interviews to help identify factors that contribute to youth violence and prevention and intervention strategies.
Outputs and Impact
- Population-level base rates for susceptibility, recruitment exposure, victimization, and mobilization indicators among young adults
- Longitudinal evidence on whether indicators are stable, emerging, escalating, or declining across waves, and whether changes in daily circumstances, online behavior, peer relationships, victimization, grievance, or isolation track changes in mobilization-relevant concern.
- A comparative assessment of whether adult-derived indicators apply to youth populations, and of how pathways differ across foreign terrorist organization recruitment, nihilistic violent extremist networks, and mass casualty violence.
Media Reporting
- Violent online extremists are luring teens to their death | WORLD
- A fascinating case study of a (since recovered) minor who was radicalized online featuring project lead Bettina Rottweiler, Ph.D.
- 764: How online extremist content is reaching Arizona teens | AZFamily
- An exposé of 764, a prolific nihilistic violent extremist network, examining the founder and the impact the group is having on youth. Featuring project lead Bettina Rottweiler, Ph.D.
Reports and Publications
- Prosecuting Nihilistic Violent Extremism: An Examination of Federal and State Charges Against 764 and Related Networks
- The project team, along with NCITE's Prosecuting Illicit Threat Actors team, describe the nature of this emergent threat, including its origin, structure, and ideology, and summarize the current state of federal charges in the U.S. linked to 764.
- Children, Young People, and the Emerging Terrorism Threat Landscape
- This piece serves as an overview of the unique vulnerabilities of youth when exposed to violent extremist content.
- Nihilistic Violent Extremism | Landing Page
- This landing page was established to collect NCITE knowledge regarding "nihilistic violent extremism" (NVE), a new term being used to describe the motivations behind certain mass-violence attacks.
Research Team
Bettina Rottweiler, Ph.D
- University of Nebraska at Omaha
- NCITE Associate Research Professor
- Expertise: Youth radicalization and mobilization, risk and protective factors for violent extremism, the effects of conspiracy theories within violent extremist group and ideologies
Caitlin Clemmow, Ph.D
- University College London
- Research Laboratory Manager, Jill Dando Institute Research Lab (JDIRL)
- Expertise: terrorism, public health, causes and prevention of crime