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Abstract
Lone terrorists’ trials very often include long discussions on the mental health of suspects. This article offers a critical analysis of the mental health categories that are used in lone terrorists’ trials. By examining how the judicial concept of “insanity” collided with the psychiatric classification of mental illnesses in Breivik’s and Kaczynski’s trials, I suggest that lone terrorists’ trials can be understood as ritualistic devices whose latent function for society is to reaffirm its progressive values. This is done through the consolidation of a cognitive prototype of the category of the “insane reactionary terrorist.”
Acknowledgements
I warmly thank Thierry Balzacq and Philippe Bourbeau (Tocqueville Chair in Security Policies, University of Namur), Olivier C. Sterck (CSAE, University of Oxford), Thibaut Slingeneyer (Criminology, Catholic University of Louvain), the participants of the CECRI seminar at the University of Louvain, and Laurent de Briey (Philosophy, University of Namur), for their useful comments on earlier drafts of the paper. The comments made by the editor and the four anonymous reviewers have also helped to significantly improve the paper.
Notes
1. On 22 July 2011, Anders Breivik activated a bomb that exploded in front of the government’s building in Oslo, Norway. He then drove to Utoya, where he killed 69 people who were attending a camp organised by the youth section of a political party. Between 1978 and 1995, Theodore Kaczynski operated a bombing campaign throughout the US, mainly through the postal service, killing three people and injuring more than 20 others; from these actions, which targeted mainly university and airlines personnel, he gained the nickname of “Unabomber.”
2. I will expand on this notion of “conservatism” later in the article. It is worth noting that Breivik has plagiarised, in his “2083. A European Declaration of Independence”, several paragraphs of Kaczynski’s pamphlet “Industrial Society and its Future.”
3. Because of the American practice of “guilty pleas,” Kaczynski did not have a trial strictly speaking. There were, however, consequent pretrial proceedings that were massively covered by the press. I acknowledge this specificity but for the sake of fluidity and since this particularity does not thwart my argument, will use the term “trial” in the rest of the article when referring to these proceedings.
4. In line with the radical views of the anti-psychiatry movement (e.g. Szasz Citation1974).
5. As Stone figuratively noted, “if social scientists ever discover the molecule of governance, surely it would be the category” (Stone Citation2005, ix). Goodman and Speer similarly held that “the speech act of categorizing can itself be an exertion of power” (Goodman and Speer Citation2007, 180).
6. Defined as “an appreciation of the politically constructed nature of terrorism knowledge; an awareness of the inherent ontological instability of the ‘terrorism’ category; a commitment to critical reflexivity regarding the uses to which research findings are put; a set of well-defined research ethics and a normative commitment to an emancipatory political praxis” (Jackson Citation2007, 244).
7. My use of Wittgenstein (and his heritage in cognitive psychology) in the context of terrorism studies is unusual (to my knowledge, only Staun (Citation2010) has so far followed this path) and could count as a fourth dimension of my contribution to the literature.
8. Johnson (Citation1998).
9. Husbyand Sorheim (Citation2011).
10. Exceptions exist. In several countries and US states, the law recognises an intermediary category (e.g. “limited capacity”).
11. It has to be noted that the DSM-IV explicitly warns against this risk of confusion, in a Wittgensteinian fashion: “When the DSM-IV categories, criteria, and textual descriptions are employed for forensic purposes, there are significant risks that diagnostic information will be misused or misunderstood. These dangers arise because of the imperfect fit between the questions of ultimate concern to the law and the information contained in a clinical diagnosis” (American Psychiatric Association Citation2005, xxiii).
12. The reader will take care not to take these claims at face value. To my knowledge, they are blatantly false.
13. Husby and Sorheim (Citation2011).
14. In the sense of not conveying accurate information on the insanity defence (read Silver, Cirincione, and Steadman Citation1994, 65).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Stéphane J. Baele
Dr Stephane J. Baele is a postdoctoral teaching and research assistant at the Tocqueville Chair in Security Policies, University of Namur (Belgium). He studied Philosophy and International Relations at the Catholic University of Louvain (with a stay at Sciences Po Paris), University College London (where he was Marie Curie Fellow), and the University of Namur (with a stay at Northwestern University). His research focuses on the impact of linguistic and cognitive dynamics on the construction, implementation, and sustenance of ethically contestable policies, especially when these policies aim at increasing security.