Radicalization is the process of causing an individual or group of people to adopt radical viewpoints on political or social issues. Radicalized individuals will often turn to violence to defend or protect their cause. There are many different types of radicalization and many ways in which a person can be radicalized. The most common type of radicalization seen is that of terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). To recruit more members for their organization, terrorists use various propaganda tactics to lure young Muslims—mainly men, but women have been involved as well—into a radical way of thinking, where they then carry out terror attacks in the name of Allah (God). Radicalization can happen in other groups as well, including those not traditionally thought of as terror organizations. For example, in the United States, instances of Nazis and other white supremacists—those who believe the white race is superior—turning to violence are seeing a resurgence in the twenty-first century. In 2015, Dylann Roof, a white supremacist in South Carolina, killed nine people in a predominantly black church. In 2017, at a white supremacist rally in Virginia, James Fields Jr. drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing one person and injuring twenty others.
