A Data-Driven Classification of Outcome Behaviors in Those Who Cause Concern to British Public Figures

Fixated individuals pose a significant threat to public figures. Previous research compares individuals labeled ‘approachers’ to those labeled ‘communicators.’ Typically, such studies compare a number of risk factors among the two groups to identify significant differences. This has impactful implications for thethreat assessment and management of the pathologically fixated. The present study builds upon thisestablished body of work by considering if more nuance can be disaggregated from a universe of casesreferred to the Fixated Threat Assessment Center (FTAC). FTAC is a joint police and mental healthunit in the U.K. which applies a public health approach to managing the pathologically fixated. Thepresent study takes a deductive approach to detect profiles of cases from the data. First, we use clusteranalysis to detect unmeasured subgroups of concerning behavior in the case files of 2,118 referrals toFTAC. We identify 5 patterns of concerning behavior: incoherent offline communicators, incoherentonline communicators, angry/abusive communicators, concerning approachers, and problematicapproachers. Second, we examine the rate of diagnosed mental disorder, the nature of concerns evoked,and case management actions taken among each of the five profiles identified. We conclude by high-lighting how our results could inform triaging large volumes of cases, the allocation of limited resources, and more generally, how the success of the FTAC model has relevance across the management ofgrievance-fueled violence in general.