Radicalisation and the jurisprudence of suspicion
Law’s pre-criminal turn and the collapse of evidentiary thresholds in the UK, France and Germany
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12919291 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Victor Iruobe (0009-0006-5769-5298, Greater Manchester Police), Ikpenmosa Uhumuavbi (0000-0002-5454-499X, Greater Manchester Police, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 1-29 |
| Publication date | 2026-02-10 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Critical Studies on Terrorism (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1753-9161 • E-ISSN: 1753-9153 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/17539153.2026.2620919 |
| OpenAlex | W7128510269 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 9 |
Radicalisation is one of the most rhetorically saturated yet legally indeterminate concepts in contemporary counterterrorism. This article reframes it not as a behavioural process but as a jurisprudence of suspicion: a juridical logic that anticipates threat, displaces evidentiary thresholds, and transforms identity into liability. Through a comparative analysis of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, it shows how distinct traditions converge on a pre-criminal paradigm: the UK’s Prevent Duty under the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 and cases such as R (Butt) v Secretary of State and Begum v Secretary of State; France’s absorption of emergency powers via SILT (2017) and the Separatism Law (2021) enabling dissolutions including BarakaCity and CCIF; and Germany’s wehrhafte Demokratie, legitimating expulsions and surveillance under the Residence Act and Federal Administrative Court jurisprudence. Combining doctrinal analysis, critical discourse analysis, and comparative method – and engaging Zedner’s preventive justice, Bigo’s ban-opticon, and postcolonial critiques – the article makes three contributions: it identifies the collapse of criminal-law categories into suspicion; demonstrates cross-system convergence on anticipatory governance; and advances a jurisprudence of constraint grounded in evidence, proportionality, and rights protection.
Criminal law · Current (fluid · Jurisprudence · Terrorism · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Criminal Law and Evidence · Criminal Law and Policy
| Highly cited | No |
|---|