Violent extremism as an area of risk assessment is less than two decades old (Pressman, 2009; Borum et al, 2023; Logan & Gill, 2023). Academic consensus today is that individuals who are motivated to contribute to violence to achieve specific ideological, religious, political or other ideas, differ significantly in risk factors from individuals who engage in general criminal violence (Pressman, 2009; Monahan, 2012; Pressman and Flockton, 2012; Sarma, 2017). It has become clear that risk assessment for violent extremism entails specific challenges that need to be taken into account by professionals and academics. For example, due to the limited number of cases worldwide, there is a considerable lack of primary source data. This hampers the possibility to study several thousands of cases. Moreover, extremists and terrorists differ in background, personality, ideology, motivations and risks (BjØrgo, 2011; Pressman et al, 2018) resulting in significant differences within an already small target population. While terrorism is a genuine security concern, the lack of homogeneous data results in limitations pertinent to predictive validity. A relevant risk assessment requires a sound professional understanding of the case specifics based on the evidence-based risk indicators of the complete knowledge base on terrorism.
Although there are different ideological, political, religious and mixed ideologies that drive violent extremism actions, the tools that are intended to assess the risk and threat of individuals should be sufficiently generic and applicable to the range of ideologies and attitudes. In addition, they should be relevant to different ages, sexual identity and human stages of development. The specifics of violent extremism require risk assessment tools with distinctive factors as compared to other types of violence. These insights were the fundamental rationale for the development of a specialized risk assessment tool for violent extremism (Pressman, 2009).
Until 2009, there were no specific tools specifically developed to assess the risk and threat of individuals motivated by ideas, values, attitudes and ideologies (Pressman, 2009; Pressman and Flockton, 2012). The VERA was initially developed after significant national security concerns over the radicalization to violence of youth and adults who had been living in Canada in safety and security (Gaudette et al, 2021).
The first specialized and published tool for the individual risk assessment of violent extremists, identified as the VERA, became available to analysts in 2009 (Pressman, 2009). The indicators used were based on the existing knowledge base of violent extremists and terrorists and were constructed into the structured professional judgment methodology. The VERA was introduced as a consultative approach at this time. Following feedback from terrorism experts, national security analysts, law enforcement analysts, and professionals using the VERA with convicted terrorists in the high security prison setting, some revisions were made to the tool. This revised VERA was identified as the VERA-2 (Pressman & Flockton, 2012).
The current VERA-2R is an updated version of the VERA-2. The VERA-2R now includes three additional motivational indicators which have been identified as relevant to the radicalization to violence process and are applicable to men, women and youth. The VERA-2R also includes additional indicators related to non-violent criminal history, personal history and mental disorders. These additional indicators have been identified as potential aggravating factors that may support radicalization to violence and terrorism actions.