THE recent High Court verdict involving the 15-year-old boy acquitted of murder on grounds of insanity should make us pause before rushing to explain horrific violence through labels such as violent extremism, nihilism or terrorism.
The case was undeniably tragic, and the loss of life devastating. But the court’s finding reminds us of a fundamental principle of criminal justice: the seriousness or brutality of an act does not, by itself, determine its legal or criminological classification.
An act can be violent without being terrorism. It can be shocking without being violent extremism. And a young person can commit a horrific crime without being ideologically radicalised.
This distinction matters at a time when there appears to be an increasing tendency to interpret serious youth violence through the lens of violent extremism.
The problem becomes particularly acute when “nihilism”, or the absence of ideology, is itself treated as an ideology.
If no ideology becomes an ideology, the boundaries of violent extremism become virtually meaningless. Any unexplained act of violence can potentially be labelled extremism, and any troubled young person can become a potential terrorist.
That is not only conceptually problematic. It is dangerous.
Violent extremism is not synonymous with terrorism.
In the context of terrorism, violence is generally connected to a broader ideological worldview or cause, whether religious, racial, ethnonationalist, supremacist or political.
Even then, ideological violence does not automatically constitute terrorism in law. There must be a demonstrable ideological nexus and a legally sustainable basis for categorising conduct as terrorism.
We cannot simply take a violent act and retrospectively search for an ideology because the consequences are shocking. The absence of an obvious motive does not automatically establish the presence of an ideological one.
Terrorism must never become a residual category for violence we do not understand.
Malaysia has confronted this distinction before. During the height of the Jemaah Islamiyah and later Islamic State threats, the police did not arrest everyone who attended the funerals of notorious individuals.
Not everyone present subscribed to those ideologies. Some were relatives. Others were neighbours.
The same principle applies elsewhere. Sympathy for an oppressed community is not automatically support for terrorism. Ethnic or political solidarity is not necessarily terrorist allegiance.
The law must distinguish carefully between sympathy, association, ideology, support and actual participation in terrorism. Once these categories become interchangeable, the threshold for state intervention becomes dangerously low.
Of course, young people can be radicalised. There are genuine cases involving minors who have embraced extremist ideologies, pledged allegiance to terrorist organisations or prepared violence in furtherance of an ideological cause.
Where such evidence exists, the threat must be taken seriously. But the assessment must begin with evidence of radicalisation, not with the assumption that violence itself proves extremism.
A child exhibiting disturbing behaviour may require psychiatric intervention. Another may be experiencing trauma or social alienation. Another may have committed a serious crime. Another may genuinely have been ideologically radicalised.
These are not the same thing.
The recent verdict is a powerful reminder of this. The court was required to consider not merely what happened, but the accused’s mental capacity and legal responsibility at the time.
Criminal justice requires precisely this kind of distinction, even when the facts are horrific and public emotions are understandably strong.
The same discipline must apply to terrorism.
When everything becomes extremism, genuine extremist threats become harder to identify.
Intelligence and enforcement resources are diverted from real ideological dangers, vague indicators can replace evidence, and counter-terrorism risks sliding into profiling.
Precision does not weaken counter-terrorism. It strengthens it.
Crime should be treated as crime. Mental illness should be addressed through appropriate medical and legal processes. Child vulnerability should trigger protection and intervention. Terrorism should remain a distinct category requiring clear evidence of the elements that define it.
The tragedy of the recent school killing demands serious reflection. But we must resist the temptation to securitise what we do not yet understand.
If we get the label wrong, we may also get the response wrong. In criminal justice, that can have consequences far beyond a single case. ‒ Sept 21, 2026
The author is a Criminologist and Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Universiti Malaya.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
Main image: Pexels/Markus Winkler
