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European Database of Terrorist offenders (EDT)

The EDT is a research database comprising of comprehensive judicial information on European terrorist and violent extremist offenders, convicted from 2012 onwards.

The database is the result of a European cross-border collaboration between judicial organizations and scientists within the European Union. The main aim of the EDT is to create a unique and large dataset to examine specific risk and protective factors for terrorism. The EDT includes a control group of convicted violent offenders unrelated to terrorism or extremism (Alberda et al, 2021).

The coded EDT data consists of personal and contextual offender information from judicial files of the participating EU Member States. These files include comprehensive documentation from the police, public prosecution, detention, forensic mental health assessment reports and probation reports.

Based on these judicial sources, a large number of potential risk factors, protective factors, and indicators for terrorism are coded in the EDT. These encompass demographic data, childhood circumstances, trigger factors, ideologies, motives, mental health issues, and the nature of the terrorist offence and type of sentence. Information from forensic mental health assessments is included to provide insight into mental health issues as possible risk factor for terrorist acts.

The EDT dataset can be used to conduct studies aimed at the identification of significant personal and contextual risk and protective factors for terrorism and violent extremism, improving and validating risk assessments, as well as identifying pathways into terrorism and radicalization. Moreover, these data can assist in the design of effective policy, prevention and intervention practices regarding potential violent extremist and terrorist offenders in Europe and elsewhere.

EDT Domains

  1. Compilation Case File
  2. Demographic data
  3. Crime & Conviction
  4. Criminal History
  5. Personal History
  6. Personality Disorder and Traits
  7. Psychiatric Disorder and Symptoms
  8. Prior to Crime: Incidents
  9. Prior to Crime: Personal Acts
  10. Preoccupation with Weapons
  11. Radicalization/Ideology
  12. Beliefs & Attitudes (VERA-2R)
  13. Social Context & Intention (VERA-2R)
  14. History, Action & Capacity (VERA-2R)
  15. Commitment & Motivation (VERA-2R)
  16. Protective & Risk Mitigation (VERA-2R)

Contact

For more information please contact: europa@dji.minjus.nl.