The concept of leakage in threat assessment

Leakage in the context of threat assessment is the communication to a third party of an intent to do harm to a target. Third parties are usually other people, but the means of communication vary, and include letters, diaries, journals, blogs, videos on the internet, emails, voice mails, and other social media forms of transmission. Leakage is a type of warning behavior that typically infers a preoccupation with the target, and may signal the research, planning, and implementation of an attack. Nomothetic data suggest that leakage occurs in a majority of cases of attacks on and assassinations of public figures, adult mass murders, adolescent mass murders, and school or campus shootings: very low-frequency, but catastrophic acts of intended and targeted violence. Idiographic or case data illustrate the various permutations of leakage. We discuss the operational importance of the concept, place it in the context of other warning behaviors, emphasize the need for further research, and outline risk management strategies for the mitigation of such acts of violence in both law enforcement and clinical mental health settings.     

Attacks on German public figures, 1968-2004: warning behaviors, potentially lethal and non-lethal acts, psychiatric status, and motivations

Fourteen non-terrorist attackers of public figures in Germany between 1968 and 2004 were intensively studied, with a particular focus on warning behaviors, attack behaviors, and the relationship between psychiatric diagnosis, symptoms, and motivations for the assault. A large proportion of the attackers were severely mentally ill, and most likely to be in the potentially lethal rather than the non-lethal group. A new typology of seven warning behaviors was applied to the data, and all were present, most frequently fixation and pathway warning behavior, and least frequently a direct threat. Psychiatric diagnosis could be closely linked to motivation when analyzed at the level of symptom and content of thought, often delusional. Most of the attacks were directed at political figures, and the majority occurred after 1995.