By T. Markus Funk

Determining an offender’s criminal culpability is an evergreen challenge. It demands a careful blending of the offender’s moral responsibility for the crime and the offense’s identifiable harmful impacts on its individual victims and on society. Far from a mere abstract or occasional theoretical exercise, this process represents a critical iterative stage before charges can be filed, findings of legal guilt rendered, or sentences imposed.

Prosecutors, judges, and other participants in the criminal justice system manage millions of criminal cases a year. In each instance, they must grapple with the weighty responsibility of determining an offender's criminal accountability and blameworthiness. The decisions made in these deliberations have profound real-world consequences. They affect not only individual cases but also influence broader societal morality and cohesion. Indictments are issued, guilty verdicts pronounced, prison sentences handed down, and punishments justified based on these intrinsically imprecise and largely retrospective assessments.

This Article contends that the current mainstream approach to criminal culpability takes an unnecessarily narrow view. More specifically, it argues that criminal conduct involves two distinct forms of injury to the victim. One form of injury, physical or emotional harm to victims, is widely acknowledged. However, the other form, the wronging by imposing unequal standing on the victim, has been unjustly overlooked, with significant societal implications.

Our current failure to properly account for the antisocial self-elevation inherent in almost all crimes as a separate and distinct injury has significant implications. It prevents us from accurately describing the crime that was committed, the offense’s full spectrum of adverse impacts on the victim and society, or why a particular punishment is appropriate. More importantly, a justice system that fails to effectively protect our equal standing and associated legal interests virtually ensures that the erosion of the rule of law will soon follow.

Reevaluating how we define and publicly articulate criminal culpability holds the promise of positive real-world impacts. By more effectively communicating the full extent of an offender’s injury to a victim and society, we materially enhance criminal punishment’s crucial expressive, evaluative, descriptive, and conduct-directing objectives. From a systemic perspective, the proposed victim-centric approach advances the justice system’s ability to foster the equality-supporting civic bonds and shared social norms essential for a thriving society.

By Manuela Brunero, Matthew Burnett Stuart, Olivier Guiryanan, Danielle Hull, Alice Robert

The report Perceptions of climate change and violent extremism: Listening to local communities in Chad has been produced by the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) in partnership with SWISSAID. Building upon UNICRI’s previous research it explores the lived experiences of community members and their perceptions on the role climate change and degradation of natural resources have in exacerbating local conflicts, as well as the impact of climate change on violent extremist groups’ recruitment narratives. The research is based on primary data collected through more than 100 in-depth interviews across four provinces of Chad — Hadjer-Lamis, Lac, Logone Occidentale and Mandoul. The report specifically analyses the effects of climate change at two interconnected levels: the direct consequences as experienced on productive activities such as agriculture, herding, and fishing, and the indirect consequences affecting coping mechanisms, social cohesion, and recruitment and propaganda by violent extremist groups. In doing so, this initiative elevates the often unheard voices of those most vulnerable and directly affected by the dual interacting threats of climate change and violent extremism. This report represents a crucial preliminary step in laying the groundwork for further research and for the development of local initiatives to prevent and counter violent extremism that take into consideration overlapping climate and security challenges.

Torino, Italy: United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, 2022. 104p.

ByTeun van Dongen, Yannick Veilleux-Lepage, Eviane Leidig, Hanna Rigault Arkhis

This research paper seeks to examine the nature of the nexus between right-wing extremism and the military by surveying five potential consequences (i.e., problem areas) arising from the presence of right-wing extremists within the armed forces of twelve Western countries. The five problem areas identified are military personnel: 1) committing right-wing extremist violence; 2) facilitating right-wing extremist violence by organisations; 3) perpetuating ideologically motivated hate crimes or violation of procedures and rules of engagement while on deployment; 4) hampering military diversity and inclusion efforts with activities and behaviours; and 5) undermining civilian control over the military. Based on a systematic review of five years of news media articles and government reports from 2017-2021, we find that for most problem areas the worst conceivable manifestations have thus far not (yet) materialised. Further, activities of military personnel with right-wing extremist leanings were not more dangerous as a result of their military background. Overall, the nature of the nexus between right-wing extremism and the military was vastly different amongst the countries in our study, with Germany and the US appearing to be the most heavily affected. The mapping of this threat serves as a basis for informing policymakers of the various scenarios and appropriate responses to counter right-wing extremism within the military.

The Hague: International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, 2022. 36p.

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Colin P. Clarke, Samuel Hodgson

Militia violent extremists (MVEs) pose a growing threat within the United States. MVEs were the most prominent and well-organised participants in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol and have plotted numerous acts of lethal violence against law enforcement, government officials, and civilians in the past decade. MVEs are motivated by a belief that private citizens must use violence to resist government overreach, combat purported tyranny, or maintain law and order. While participants in the broader militia movement embrace similar beliefs, MVEs are distinguished by their willingness to carry out violence.

The Hague: The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, , 2022. 290p.

By Alex P. Schmid

In this Research Paper, Research Fellow Dr. Alex P. Schmid seeks to clarify some conceptual issues that tend to obscure the debate about how best to counter violent extremism. The main focus of this Research Paper is on obtaining a clearer understanding of what “Islamist extremism” entails in the context of the ongoing debate on allegedly “acceptable” non-violent extremists and “unacceptable” violent extremists. The author discusses a number of conceptualisations of religious extremism in the context of liberal democracies and also distinguishes, inter alia, between merely “not (yet) violent” militancy and principled non-violent political activism in the Gandhian tradition. The author argues that the distinction between “non-violent extremism” and “violent extremism” is not a valid one. The paper provides a set of twenty indicators of extremism that can be used as an instrument for monitoring extremist statements and actions, with an eye to challenging and countering such non-democratic manifestations.

The Hague: The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, 2014. 31p.

By Torunn Wimpelmann

Since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, violence against women has emerged as the single most important issue for Afghan gender politics. The Pitfalls of Protection, based on research conducted in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2015, locates the struggles over gender violence in local and global power configurations. Torunn Wimpelmann finds that aid flows and geopolitics have served as both opportunities for and obstacles to feminist politics in Afghanistan. Showing why Afghan activists often chose to use the leverage of Western powers instead of entering into either protracted negotiations with powerful national actors or broad political mobilization, this book examines both the achievements and the limits of this strategy.

Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2017. 231p.

By J. Bouje and M.E. de Bruijn.

Ordinary social violence, - i.e. recurrent mental or physical aggression occurring between closely related people - structures social relationships in Africa, and in the world. Studies of violence in Africa often refer to ethnic wars and explicit conflicts and do not enter the hidden domain of violence that this book reveals through in-depth anthropological studies from different parts and contexts in Africa. Ordinary violence has its distinctive forms embedded in specific histories and cultures. It is gendered, implicates witchcraft accusations, varies in rural and urban contexts, relates to demographic and socio-economic changes of the past decades and is embedded in the everyday life of many African citizens. The experience of ordinary violence goes beyond the simple notion of victimhood; instead it structures social life and should therefore be a compelling part of the study of social change.

Leiden: African Studies Centre,, 2014. 190p.

By J.C. Both, M.C. Mouguia and M.E. de Bruijn.

In this report we elaborate on the historical dimensions of young people’s enrolment and use in armed groups or armed forces in the Central African Republic (CAR). While this phenomenon, also understood as the enlistment and use of child soldiers, is often seen as a recent phenomenon, the report aims to show that children and adolescents have historically been involved in self-defence groups or were forcefully recruited in what is currently the territory of CAR. In the past, they were not called child soldiers; they may not even have always been seen as children due to different cultural definitions of childhood. However, the phenomenon is not new as will be shown in this report.

Leiden: African Studies Centre, 2020. 81p.

By Georges Sorel.

Georges Sorel's Reflections on Violence (1908) remains a controversial text to this day. It unashamedly advocates the use of violence as a means of putting an end to the corrupt politics of bourgeois democracy and of bringing down capitalism. It is both dangerous and fascinating, of enduring importance and interest to all those concerned about the nature of modern politics.

New York: B.W. Huebsch. 1914. 322p.