222467to222472

Terrorism, Risk, and Legislation
loss of self-control resulting from mental illness (see for example predator
and civil confinement laws in the US) or through requirements of multiple
prior convictions (before being eligible as a dangerous offender, see for
example German amendments of the law on incapacitative sentencing or
detention for public protection in the UK). Current debates on pre-emptive
detention demonstrate an emerging political will to lower the threshold of an
imminent danger to a grave risk (that terrorist violence will be exerted in the
future) and to extend the period for which an individual may be detained
under the prediction that he poses an immediate or long term danger.
Transnational organized crime and international terrorism both point
towards a new category of dangerousness which does not result from
insanity nor from chronic or career offending nor from a need to respond to
an imminent and short term danger. It is either rational (market) behaviour
or extremist attitudes which provoke assessments of (longterm)
dangerousness. Insofar, there will not be indicators such as chronic past
offending or a psychiatric diagnosis available but – according to ongoing
debates – rather soft criteria like having spent time in an al Quaeda training
camp (see now the UK Terrorism Act, 2006 where attendance at a place
used for terrorist training establishes a criminal offence), being part of a
communicating network of extremists, voicing certain (extremist) ideas and
convictions. However, public opinion and the political will in European
societies will inevitably lead to such legislation in the future. This again
demonstrates that it will be of paramount importance to establish procedures
which will guarantee an independent (judicial) control of detention
decisions as well as procedural fairness as requested by the European
Convention on Human Rights.
References
Albrecht, H.-J. (1998), Organisierte Kriminalität – Theoretische Erklärungen und
empirische Befunde, In: Deutsche Sektion der Internationalen Juristen-Kommission (ed.),
Organisierte Kriminalität und Verfassungsstaat, Heidelberg: Müller, pp. 1-40.
Albrecht, H.-J. (1998a), Money Laundering and the Confiscation of the Proceeds of Crime -
A comparative view on different models of the control of money laundering and
confiscation, In: The Europeanisation of Law, Ed. T. Watkin. United Kingdom
Comparative Law Series, vol. 18, Oxford: Alden Press, pp. 166-207.
43