VOX-Pol and University College London’s Dr. Paul Gill participated in the Asia Pacific Association of Threat Assessment Professionals’ (APATAP) annual conference in Singapore on 13 – 15 February. The conference focused on current and ongoing academic work, which falls in line with its goals of fostering and supporting cross-disciplinary study and management of threatening individuals and behaviours.
Dr. Gill gave the keynote presentation of the third day of the conference, presenting a paper on ‘Sequencing Lone-Actor Terrorist Pathways: Offline and Online Activities’ that explored the concept of radicalisation ‘pathways’ with regard to lone-actor terrorists. He shed light on how the ‘risk’ of engaging in terrorist activities crystallises across multiple behaviours and vulnerabilities coalescing in space and time.
Other topics covered during the conference included a comparative study of alternative extremist movements, a case study of an online hacker in Singapore, and the development of an assessment to measure gang attitudes in Singaporean offenders. Participants in the conference were a mix of on-the-ground practitioners and academics.
Dr. Gill also participated in the expert panel on ‘International Perspectives on Managing Extremism in All its Forms’ which closed the conference. Other panellists included representatives from the Singapore Police Force, North London Forensic Service, and Canada’s Simon Fraser University.
When asked to describe his experience, Dr Gill stated “It was a great experience to interact with threat assessment professionals and leading academics. Best practice was shared across several government and industry initiatives.”