Avoidance, backfooting and concealing: A taxonomy of resistance strategies used by terrorist suspects in the UK

Interpersonal resistance behaviours exhibited by suspects in police investigative interviews vary across individuals and groups. Nine hundred and seventy-nine suspect interview tapes with 88 convicted terrorist suspects (approximately 754 h of footage) were coded for the presence of resistance behaviours. The sample, obtained from UK Law Enforcement suspect interviews, included 53 Islamic terrorism suspects (IT), comprised of both Islamic State (IS) and Al Qaeda (AQ), 19 Paramilitary, 10 Extreme Right Wing (ERW), 2 Anti-government/Anti-establishment and 4 other or unclear ideology. Analysis identified thirteen frequently used resistance strategies loading onto three components: (i) Avoidance (refuse to look at the interviewer, silence, closed eyes): (ii) Backfooting (making philosophical/ ideological statements, interrupting, insulting/provoking interviewers, raised voice, discussing unrelated topics, glaring); and (iii) Concealing (revealing well-known information, scripted responses, monosyllabic responses, claiming no memory. IS suspects were more likely to display backfooting behaviours than AQ and paramilitary suspects and less likely to display avoidance behaviours than paramilitary suspects. IS and ERW suspects were also more likely to display concealing behaviours than AQ suspects. Although significant differences between ideological groups were observed, substantial between- and within-suspect variation indicated that resistance was dynamic rather than a fixed characteristic.