By Anne Speckhard, Molly Ellenberg, and TM Garret

The following report is an interim report of an ongoing study, with the current results based on 50 in-depth psychosocial interviews of white supremacists in five countries (the U.S., Canada, Germany, UK and New Zealand) collected over the time period of October 2020 to October 2021. The interviews focused on the subjects’ childhood histories, exposures to white supremacism, recruitment and joining processes, experiences in the group including ideological indoctrination and with violence and if disillusioned their disengagement and deradicalization experiences. All of the interviews were conducted over Zoom and video recorded with most participants agreeing to have their interview used to produce a short counter narrative video for use in disrupting white supremacist online and face-to-face recruitment.

McLean, VA: International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism, 2022. 46p.