ABSTRACT
We have observed in our discussion above how some of the traditional criminological theories that we have encountered in the first four parts of this book – in particular, the US anomie tradition as developed via deviant subculture theories but also social control theories – have helped to explain why it is that people join terrorist groups. In other words, this is part of a long established criminological tradition which proposes that people choose to act in certain criminal ways because of where they are born and who they associate with and this is as much applicable to involvement in terrorism as it is to the white-collar, professional and hate crimes we identified in the second part of this book. Ruggiero (2005) follows in this sociological criminological tradition and commences his discussion with Durkheim and we should observe that the latter’s notion of the ‘normality of crime’ which is functional to requirements of society is commensurate with an understanding of terrorist activity. Terrorist activities seem to make most sense at times of rapid social change – when there is a prevailing sense of normlessness or Durkheimian anomie – and when an unfair or forced division of labour is readily apparent to many.
