The psychological development of the terrorist mind set: pertinence in the sentencing phase of capital trial
The psychological development of the terrorist mind set: pertinence in the sentencing phase of capital trial

Summary/Abstract: This paper reviews past and current scholarly literature about the psychological development of the terrorist mind set with a special focus on how adverse life experiences early in one’s lifetime negatively impacts the normal psychological development. Information that pertains to childhood trauma, social psychological factors, psycho-social causes, and psycho-cultural foundations that play a role in the development of terrorist beliefs and behaviors are explored. This paper also reviews several theories that attempt to explain terrorism; a few from a social and cultural perspective, as a constellation of terrorism research scholars suggest that the development of terrorist behavior is in every way contextual. The lives of two known terrorists, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Ted Kaczynski, are analyzed to illustrate how the psychological, social, and cultural factors that make up their backgrounds were applied in the sentencing (mitigation) phases of their trials resulting in the death penalty being replaced with a life sentence for both.

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