Journal of Threat Assessment and Management, Vol 13(3), Sep 2026, 199-229; doi:10.1037/tam0000248
Law enforcement and security services are facing a rising number of referrals involving concerns about an adolescent’s potential for extremist violence. Assessing and managing their risks requires a somewhat different approach than doing so with adults. While some risk and protective factors overlap, their significance varies at different stages, as do their mechanisms of action. Risk must be understood in its developmental context. The challenge is amplified because adolescents are concurrently undergoing significant biological, social/emotional, and cognitive changes. This article describes a developmentally informed approach to these assessments to help professionals better understand the complexities of adolescent behavior and to plan and provide more effective interventions. It introduces the general challenge of assessing risks related to violent extremism and the emergence of the Structured Professional Judgment model as a best practice approach. It goes on to define the contours of “developmentally informed assessment,” explaining why that perspective is necessary for a competent evaluation of an adolescent’s risk for extremist violence. The ensuing sections outline some of the key developmental constructs such as identity and psychosocial maturity and developmentally specific risk and protective factors to consider in those evaluations and conclude with a brief description and example of the risk formulation process. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)