October 17, 2011 — Pinning down what makes a person commit a terrorist act is difficult compared to understanding risk factors for other forms of violence, University of Virginia law professor John Monahan explains in his new article, "The Individual Risk Assessment of Terrorism," now available on the Social Science Research Network and forthcoming in early 2012 in the journal Psychology, Public Policy, and Law.

Monahan, the first non-lawyer psychologist to hold a full-time teaching position in an American law school, has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court as a leading thinker on the issue of violence risk assessment. He applied his expertise in the field to terrorism in the aftermath of the Fort Hood shooting.

A Q&A with Monahan is available online.