https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4750-8480
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ABSTRACT
Efforts to develop scientifically rigorous and operationally relevant research on the assessment of individuals who present as at risk of radicalisation to violent extremism and/or grievance-fuelled violence remain underdeveloped. The Terrorist Radicalization Assessment Protocol (TRAP-18) has been used across some jurisdictions in Australia to assess whether individuals are radicalising to violent extremism. A number of research publications suggest that the TRAP-18 may provide a valid assessment in radical individuals and may also have some predictive power to identify individuals who escalate to violence. However, to date, there has been no formal assessment of the usability of the TRAP-18. That is, it’s effectiveness in its aims (face validity), or user agreement of included factors (content validity). This work attends to this, and conducts empirically informed, practitioner-oriented research to examine whether the TRAP-18 is a valid and practical assessment tool for the CVE arena across Australia. We conduct a number of focus groups with both practitioners and academic experts. Overall, the results highlight that the TRAP-18 shows promise for use in Australia.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Currently, on the Global Terrorism Index (Institute for Economics and Peace, Citation2020), the United States of America is ranked 29th, the United Kingdom, 30th, France, 38th, New Zealand, 42nd, Germany, 48th, Canada, 56th, Belgium and Italy are ranked 59th, Sweden, 61st, and Spain, 63rd.
2 This is predominately due to the restricted access of instruments for researchers as most instruments require training and are held by government agencies.
3 As the TRAP-18 has been extensively described elsewhere, it is not within the remit of this work to do so. For more information, please see Meloy (Citation2018).
4 The predominant focus across the literature is ensuring content validity during instrument development (Mastaglia, Toye, & Kristjanson, Citation2003). However, it is also necessary to re-evaluate instruments over time to ensure content validity following scientific advances (Vogt et al., Citation2004). Given the exponential increase in empirical research investigating extremism, terrorism and radicalisation in the last decade (Schuurman, Citation2018), it is therefore appropriate to evaluate content validity of the TRAP-18.
5 Following a systematic search and rigorous synthesis of all published literature on the TRAP-18, which yielded the identification of 42 published studies, none of which purported to assess, or made conclusions about the face validity or usability of the TRAP-18.
6 Following the systematic search and rigorous synthesis of all published literature on the TRAP-18, none were identified that focused on practitioner populations.
7 Unlike the current tests of the content validity of the instrument, that rely on offender samples.
8 Training and familiarity with the TRAP-18 was not a requirement of participation in this research.
9 These individuals all had PhD qualifications across these three areas and held academic positions at universities.
10 Following the ethics procedures, and to protect the identity of all participants, all correspondence was destroyed following the conclusion of the focus groups.
11 Two weeks later, a second, follow-up email was sent to all potential participants who had not yet responded. This email re-confirmed that knowledge of, or training in, the TRAP-18 was not required. This led to the recruitment of a second wave of participants: six in the expert group and twenty in the user group.
12 At the end of all focus groups, participants were requested to return the TRAP-18 documentation to the investigator (face-to-face setting) or destroy the documentation (online setting).
13 One member of the research team conducted all focus groups and interviews, with the other member of the research team attending a proportion of focus groups (N = 8). An external independent evaluator, an academic and practitioner expert in risk assessment and management, also attended one user focus group and one expert focus group acting as an observer only. This evaluator was also provided with all data, notes, and the final report, and performed an evaluation of the research.
14 The stated risk specification of the TRAP-18.
15 The author of the TRAP-18 states that as there is no scoring within the TRAP-18, the factors are used to ‘help the threat assessor to step back and see the patterns before him or her, rather than narrowly focusing on just one discrete variable’ (Meloy, Citation2017, p. 8).
16 This was scored, with each mention receiving a score of 1 (both positive and negative), and the totals summed. So, for example, pathway warning behaviour received a positive score of three and a negative score of zero, so received an overall score of 3, whereas creativity and innovation received a positive score of zero and a negative score of nine, receiving an overall score of minus nine.
17 We return to this issue in the section on the structure of the instrument.
18 As Gill et al. (Citation2017) note, lone actors are equally likely to use the online space as the offline space for their ideological advancement and attack planning, and the differences in such behaviours lay in the function that each behaviour was used for. As Gill et al. note, ‘The Internet is largely a facilitative tool that affords greater opportunities for violent radicalization and attack planning. Nevertheless, radicalization and attack planning are not dependent on the Internet and researchers need to look at behaviors, intentions, and capabilities. Offenders hampered by their co-offending environment or the ambitions of their plot are afforded opportunities online. We found significant differences across targeting strategies, ideologies, network forms, and actors’ propensity to engage in online learning and communication.’ (p. 113)
19 Where this may be problematic is in the stated risk specification of the TRAP-18, that does not distinguish between ideologies. The inclusion of a factor that is only relevant for specific ideologies affects its overall representativeness.
20 For example, research in this area has consistently identified the importance of opportunity during the commission of a lone actor terrorist act (Gill & Corner, Citation2016; Gill, Marchment, Corner, & Bouhana, Citation2018; Marchment & Gill, Citation2019; Williams, Corner, & Taylor, Citation2020).
21 Practitioners noted that the usability of the instrument was higher for those who are directly responsible for intelligence gathering and attack prevention, as they are more able to gather information across a broader range of factors. However, for those not within these roles, there is little opportunity to gather all information necessary to complete a full and rigorous assessment.
22 It is also worth noting that the two studies employing traditional tests of predictive validity were not explicitly examining lone actor terrorists (Böckler et al., Citation2021; Fernández García-Andrade et al., Citation2019).
23 Lloyd (Citation2019, p. 34) mentions that ‘A direct interview is very helpful for additional information, but in a pre-crime scenario may not be possible, necessary or wise’, and also notes that ‘The most reliable and valid assessment of a case utilising the TRAP-18 will have three sources of data: A direct interview (clinical or nonclinical, and may or may not utilise psychometric testing), Collateral interviews of those who currently know the person of concern and his behaviour, and Public records available on the person, including law enforcement and national security sources if available.’ (p. 35).
24 One way of solving the issues regarding setting deployment would be to include supplemental material and guidance for the different practitioner groups who may seek to use the instrument.