Maxwell "Max" Taylor (born 19 April 1945) is a criminal and legal psychologist. His early work specialised in the study of terrorism but he also became involved in the study of sex offenders, and in the development of capacity building activities for disadvantaged children in conflict zones, returning later to the study of terrorism.
After earlier appointments in Wales, Canada and Northern Ireland, he was appointed Professor and Head of the Department of Applied Psychology, at University College Cork a post he held from 1983 to 2005. In 2005, Taylor became Professor of International Relations and Director of E-Learning at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence University of St Andrews, where he subsequently became Director in 2009. He retired from this post in 2012. He is currently Visiting Professor in the Department of Security and Crime Sciences, University College, London.
In the period 1993 to 2004, Taylor developed the Child Studies Unit. This Unit grew out of work in Khartoum, Sudan, and later had technical offices in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Kigali, Rwanda, and during the Balkans War in Sarajevo (subsequently moving to Zenica). From 1994 to 1996 he was a consultant to the UNICEF Special Representative to the Former Yugoslavia. The Child Studies Unit was primarily concerned with capacity building for disadvantaged children living in conflict zones. [1] [2]
In 1998 Taylor formed the COPINE Project ("Combating Paedophile Information Networks in Europe"): this was an EU funded research initiative which was originally developed in co-operation with the Paedophile Unit of the London Metropolitan Police. As part of the Project work, with colleagues he helped to develop the COPINE scale. [3] [4] The COPINE Scale is a typology to categorise child abuse images for use in both research and law enforcement. [5] The COPINE Scale formed the basis of the UK Sentencing Advisory Commission sentencing guidelines on conviction of offenders. The ten-level typology was based on analysis of images available on websites and internet newsgroups. Other researchers developed similar ten-level scales. [6]
In St. Andrews Taylor developed innovative elearning programmes in Terrorism Studies (Certificate in Terrorism Studies, and Diploma and M.Litt. in Terrorism Studies). [7] This built on and extended Taylor's work in developing the elearning undergraduate and graduate programmes in Information Technology offered by the National Distance Education Centre, Dublin where Taylor was Course Leader for the Social and Behavioural Sciences stream. A characteristic of the Terrorism Studies programmes was their focus on integration of theory with practise.
For most of his academic career, Taylor has been concerned with the problems of applying psychology to real life problems. In part this has involved the development and use of psychological insights in new untested situations, but there has also been a consistent thread of concern with integrating theory with practice in areas of existing practice. He was one of the first investigators exploring psychological factors in the development of terrorism, and in exploring links between situational crime analysis and terrorist behaviour. His work has been grounded in his background in behaviour analysis, but his recent work has engaged with ecological and environmental factors. Recent research relates to terrorism and the Internet. He is currently editor of the journal Terrorism and Political Violence and is also editor of the 'New Directions in Terrorism Studies Series' (with Currie, P.M. and Horgan, J.) published by Bloomsbury Press.
State terrorism refers to acts of terrorism which a state conducts against another state or against its own citizens.
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of intentional violence and fear to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war against non-combatants. The terms "terrorist" and "terrorism" originated during the French Revolution of the late 18th century but became widely used internationally and gained worldwide attention in the 1970s during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Basque conflict, and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The increased use of suicide attacks from the 1980s onwards was typified by the 2001 September 11 attacks in the United States.
Pornography addiction is the scientifically controversial application of an addiction model to the use of pornography. Pornography may be part of compulsive sexual behavior with negative consequences to one's physical, mental, social, or financial well-being. While the World Health Organization's ICD-11 (2022) has recognized compulsive sexual behaviour disorder (CSBD) as an "impulsive control disorder", CSBD is not an addiction, and the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5 (2013) and the DSM-5-TR (2022) do not classify compulsive pornography consumption as a mental disorder or a behavioral addiction.
Victor B. Cline (1925–2013) was a University of California, Berkeley Ph D in Psychology, a research scientist with the George Washington University’s Human Resources Research Office, and an Emeritus Professor in Psychology at the University of Utah. His private clinical practice was in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Abuse is the improper usage or treatment of a thing, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit. Abuse can come in many forms, such as: physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, assault, violation, rape, unjust practices, crimes, or other types of aggression. To these descriptions, one can also add the Kantian notion of the wrongness of using another human being as means to an end rather than as ends in themselves. Some sources describe abuse as "socially constructed", which means there may be more or less recognition of the suffering of a victim at different times and societies.
A lone wolf attack, or lone actor attack, is a particular kind of mass murder, committed in a public setting by an individual who plans and commits the act on their own. In the United States, such attacks are usually committed with firearms. In other countries, knives are sometimes used to commit mass stabbings. Although definitions vary, most databases require a minimum of four victims for the event to be considered a mass murder.
The cycle of abuse is a social cycle theory developed in 1979 by Lenore E. Walker to explain patterns of behavior in an abusive relationship. The phrase is also used more generally to describe any set of conditions which perpetuate abusive and dysfunctional relationships, such as abusive child rearing practices which tend to get passed down. Walker used the term more narrowly, to describe the cycling patterns of calm, violence, and reconciliation within an abusive relationship. Critics suggest the theory was based on inadequate research criteria, and cannot therefore be generalized upon.
The term cycle of violence refers to repeated and dangerous acts of violence as a cyclical pattern, associated with high emotions and doctrines of retribution or revenge. The pattern, or cycle, repeats and can happen many times during a relationship. Each phase may last a different length of time, and over time the level of violence may increase. The phrase has been increasingly widespread since first popularized in the 1970s.
John G. Horgan is a Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. He studies involvement and engagement with terrorism, with a focus on disengagement and deradicalisation from terrorist movements. He has been described by the European Eye on Radicalization research group as the "world’s most distinguished expert in the psychology of terrorism". Since 2019, Horgan has been leading a team of researchers funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to research the incel subculture.
Pedophilia is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Although girls typically begin the process of puberty at age 10 or 11, and boys at age 11 or 12, psychiatric diagnostic criteria for pedophilia extend the cut-off point for prepubescence to age 13.
The COPINE scale is a rating system created in Ireland and used in the United Kingdom to categorise the severity of images of child sex abuse. The scale was developed by staff at the COPINE project. The COPINE Project was founded in 1997, and is based in the Department of Applied Psychology, University College Cork, Ireland.
Victimisation is the state or process of being victimised or becoming a victim. The field that studies the process, rates, incidence, effects, and prevalence of victimisation is called victimology.
Child sexual abuse (CSA), also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include engaging in sexual activities with a child, indecent exposure, child grooming, and child sexual exploitation, such as using a child to produce child pornography.
A range of research has been conducted examining the link between viewing child pornography and perpetration of child sexual abuse, and much disagreement persists regarding whether a causal connection has been established. Perspectives fall into one of three positions:
Child pornography is unlawful pornography in most jurisdictions that exploits minors for sexual stimulation. It may be produced with the direct involvement or sexual assault of a child or it may be simulated child pornography. Abuse of the child occurs during the sexual acts or lascivious exhibitions of genitals or pubic areas which are recorded in the production of child pornography. Child pornography may use a variety of mediums, including writings, magazines, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, video, virtual reality and video games. Child pornography may be created for profit or other reasons.
Dennis Howitt is a British psychologist. He is a reader in Applied Psychology at Loughborough University and the author of numerous psychology textbooks. He is a chartered forensic psychologist and a Fellow of the British Psychological Society. His publications also include books on statistics, computing and methodology.
Fathali M. Moghaddam is an Iranian-born psychologist, author, professor of psychology at Georgetown University and director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Cognitive Science (ICOS), Department of Government, Georgetown University.
Since the early 1970s, extrajudicial punishment attacks have been carried out by Ulster loyalist and Irish republican paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland. Attacks can range from a warning or expulsion from Northern Ireland, backed up by the threat of violence, to severe beatings that leave victims in hospital and shootings in the limbs. The cause of the attacks is disputed; proposed explanations include the breakdown of order as a result of the Northern Ireland conflict, ideological opposition to British law enforcement, and the ineffectiveness of police to prevent crime.
Cybersex trafficking, live streaming sexual abuse, webcam sex tourism/abuse or ICTs -facilitated sexual exploitation is a cybercrime involving sex trafficking and the live streaming of coerced sexual acts and/or rape on webcam.
Ethel Quayle is British clinical psychologist. She is Personal Chair of Forensic Clinical Psychology at the University of Edinburgh. She researches sexual crimes against children, particularly sexual offenses involving the internet.