ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies a number of enduring practices and underpinning principles of counter-terrorism (CT) which, in turn, raise questions over their applicability to new, mutable and dynamic forms of terrorism. The convergence of the realms of crime control and CT has generated significant questions over how applicable such criminological ideas are to the realm of CT. Yet for all the decentralisation and fragmentation of CT practice, some homogenising tendencies remain. One particularly significant precursor event that still influences contemporary CT thinking is the Red Army Faction murder of Alfred Herrhausen, then Chairman of Deutsche Bank. One of the most influential elements of applied criminology among CT practice has been a number of specific interpretations of rational choice theory. Focusing on the UK, this chapter has argued that this union paradoxically drew a diversity of agencies into cognate areas of security practice yet, at the same time, elevated a number of understandings of criminal behaviour into to realm of CT.
