The Violence We Can Prevent

A violence prevention expert on radicalization, community, and what each of us can do

Last week, Sarah and I shared our conversation with Abby Cox, the First Lady of Utah, and Joanna Lydgate, the First Lady of Massachusetts, about political violence. On Tuesday, Capitol Police officers arrested an 18-year-old who approached the Capitol with a loaded shotgun. This comes as data from 2025 shows an alarming increase in reported threats against members of Congress. Thankfully, there are positive downward trends in violent crime in the U.S. Still, it is too common. Monday’s shooting during a high school hockey game in Rhode Island is the 43rd mass shooting of 2026 according to the Gun Violence Archive. There’s also, of course, violence connected to federal immigration enforcement efforts. I am worried about the long-term consequences of the federal government’s surge in Minneapolis and other cities.

So, I reached out to Hala Furst to discuss violence prevention. Hala has a wealth of experience and insight to share. We decided to share this conversation in the form of a transcript (many thanks to Alise for her time working on this project). I hope you find it as valuable as I have.

This conversation has been transcribed from audio and, in the process, has been edited and condensed for readability.

Beth Silvers: We last talked about DOGE and the experience of being an employee at the Department of Homeland Security. We’re gonna move on from that even though there’s a lot to say about the Department of Homeland Security right now because you are still working in violence prevention and I want to draw that expertise out today.

More to Say About DOGE & Violence Prevention

First, I wanna talk to you about how you assess the current environment. I remember in our chat talking about the difference between being radicalized and being radicalized to violence. That’s on my mind a lot right now watching everything that’s unfolding, particularly in Minnesota. Help me think through, from the perspective of a violence prevention expert, what the environment looks like right now.

Hala Furst: I wanna be clear that my expertise is on targeted violence and terrorism prevention. Targeted violence is in a larger bucket of violence that can include terrorism but is targeted against a person, a place, a group of people – sometimes ideologically motivated, but not always ideologically motivated.

It’s this category of violence that we’ve all seen, but we don’t always know how to talk about. And it is not unique, but it is written about in a really exotic way. It includes things like school shootings. It includes things like the shooting in Las Vegas years ago. It includes politically motivated violence. It includes premeditated hate crime. It’s a large category.

It gets at something that is not necessarily new in our country. Terrorism has this ideological, interrupting-political-process-or-society component. Sometimes things are less than that, but there’s still a form of violence that is not just street crime or heat-of-the-moment or something interpersonal.

We’re trying to get at this idea that people can become radicalized by either what they’re encountering in their everyday lives or what they’re seeing online. They can stay in that steady state for a while, but once they adopt the belief that violence is the way to further their aims, which is what radicalization is, and start to move towards that, that’s when we get into this difficult place of ideas versus action, which is always in play when you’re in a constitutional democracy. We have to have a way of addressing the very real issue of somebody radicalizing and then thinking that they need to move to violence that does not infringe on their civil rights and civil liberties.

We’re in a really, really tough place right now. Part of it is because of the amount of information that we’re encountering online and the communities that are operating in that space. The switch from radicalizing to mobilizing can happen very, very quickly. So, does it make the most sense to catch them in that moment or does it make more sense to move the full conversation upstream to where we’re talking about what the underlying protective and risk factors are that make a person more likely to radicalize and then mobilize the violence?

That’s where we are right now. I know that’s sort of like a long walk away from your question, but I think it’s important to put context around how we think about these issues.

It’s a very difficult moment in terms of polarization. I work at the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL) at American University. What we’re seeing more and more is people polarizing and radicalizing against one another. The belief that the other side, whatever that might be, is an existential threat.

So, we are in a position where folks are moving further into this belief that the other side is an existential threat. When that happens – when you believe that other people or another ideology or another group is an existential threat – it gets tied up in identity. It gets tied up in all these other issues that are very, very difficult to disentangle.

It’s also a lot harder to deradicalize someone than to prevent them from walking down that road in the first place. So, we’re working against a lot of factors big and small.

The same risk factors that could lead a person to radicalize to targeted violence could also lead them to domestic violence, suicidality, or a whole host of potential harms. What we find is just like people choose – and choose is a harsh, harsh word – to self-medicate with alcohol or drugs or domestic violence, they’ll also self-medicate with violent ideology. That becomes the thing that helps them feel better.

So, what could help that instead? That’s the question that we have to answer. What are the protective factors that we can bolster and what are the risk factors that we can reduce to make this particular type of self-medication less attractive? Then, simultaneously, how do we communicate so that the polarization doesn’t teach us that other people or other groups are an existential threat?

Beth Silvers: I wanna try to put a container around this to get more specific and concrete in my own mind about what violence prevention work looks like.

I just read this article about a bunch of podcasters and influencers live-streaming themselves for like 12 hours in Miami. They have an unbelievably large audience and a pretty profound influence over that audience. They live-streamed themselves out partying in Miami and went to a club. They requested the DJ play a song about Hitler that has been banned from most streaming platforms. They did the Nazi salute repeatedly. I didn’t watch, so I’m taking someone else’s word for it, but it read like a clear demonstration of their antisemitism.

Then, they got in a little spat afterward because a couple of them were blaming it on someone else and walking their own part in it back. Others were like, “I can’t believe you’re apologizing for antisemitism. What is wrong with you?”

Let’s say I’m the mom of a young man who really watches these guys closely. Where are the lines around this? Where should I be concerned that he is consuming content that I think is hateful?

I’m unsure whether that hate will translate to behavior or if it is an experimentation or, as you said, a self-medication. How should I be thinking about this?

Hala Furst: It’s a really tough spot. I have a 15-year-old stepson and this is something that I’m constantly on guard for. It doesn’t make it any easier because turns out, even as a prevention expert or someone who works with prevention experts, you still live the same life that everyone else does.

In those instances, the instinct is for parents to just take the phones, right? And there are a lot of phone bans happening right now. The problem is that kids are less likely to talk to you about what they’re seeing and what they’re experiencing. If your instinct is to just take away the phone or take away their access to their friends, to information, to all of this stuff, they’re not going to be open with you.

The hardest thing about this work is to come at it from a place of curiosity and empathy. Now, I’m not saying to be empathetic towards Andrew Tate or virulent antisemites. That’s not at all what I’m saying. What I’m saying is, if your kid is looking at this content, the hardest, but most necessary thing to do is sit beside them and talk to them about what they’re seeing. What do they like about it? What do they not like about it? Just start to ask questions.

We find that often it’s easiest if you’re sitting in a car because you’re both looking forward. It’s not confrontational. We have resources on the PERIL website that are specific for parents and caregivers to talk through some of these questions and how to address this.

What you have to do is get curious and sit in this place of empathy and trying to understand what is the underlying need or desire that this content is supporting in your kid. Is it just that their friends are looking at it, so they are looking at it? Is it that these men seem to have power or prestige or something else that they also want? Are they role models?

Looking at the why and getting curious about the why is the majority of the battle. Then, going back to this idea of risk factors and protective factors, you can start to understand what the underlying needs are that could be met with other things.

Let me give you a very simplistic example. Your kid is watching this and he’s seen the camaraderie amongst these men, That’s what we see time and again; it’s not always the specific ideology that attracts people. You will see folks go ideology shopping because what they’re actually looking for is community and belonging and mission and purpose.

Which, is why the years of counterterrorism work that have been done is necessary, but not sufficient to address this problem. Folks are, generally speaking, not always attracted to the ideology. Some are, but most are attracted to the community, the belonging, the sense of self, the sense of purpose, and then the ideology comes alongside of it.

If that’s what they’re looking for, then great. There are so many other routes that a kid can go to get those needs met. But, if your immediate instinct is to just shut it off, end it, don’t look at this, you’re not gonna learn what the underlying need is. Part of what prevention asks of us is to take that step back, to start at an earlier point.

A protective factor could be parental involvement. You’re already asking these questions before you start seeing your kid even going online. Then, when they see this content – maybe for the first time or the 10th time – they have that built-in sort of antibody against it.

The important thing is to take that breath as a parent.
Take a step back and get curious.

Obviously, if you see imminent danger where your kid is writing something about wanting to commit acts of violence, there are other things we can do at that point. But, if it’s just that you don’t like your kids seeing specific content, you have to get to that underlying issue.

Beth Silvers: I have to believe that we are in a Ruby Ridge type moment right now with the government’s actions through ICE and Border Patrol, where there will be people radicalized to violence by this. In the moment, a lot of us in a position to see that and get upstream of it share the rage and frustration. So what does PERIL’s work look like in this context?

Hala Furst: PERIL’s work is predominantly with youth and people who support youth: parents, caregivers, educators. However, the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3) where I used to work at Department of Homeland Security before I moved to PERIL did work across all, all age groups.

I absolutely agree that the events that are happening right now could have the effect of radicalizing people. I didn’t talk about Minnesota at the beginning when I was kind of laying out the moment that we’re in and the way that prevention could operate because it has felt to me, and those of us who’ve done this work, that this escalation has been happening for a while. It could be that Minnesota was going to radicalize people, or Gaza was gonna radicalize people, or any of the violent incidents that have happened along this timeline. The concern is ongoing. The same thing that works for kids can work for adults.

When you’re asking about people who are showing sympathy for violence against ICE or CDP, the same things that work when you’re talking to your kid about violent content they might be seeing online and why it resonates with them and what their underlying grievances are works on adults, too. We often see that when we do training for parents or caregivers. They also get quite a bit of training for themselves. It’s still about understanding the underlying grievance, the underlying issue that is upsetting here.

I think it’s pretty obvious that what is upsetting people here is the injustice, the extrajudicial killing. I will caveat that we don’t know everything yet, but that’s what it seems like. The feeling that people are powerless, the feeling that people are being taken from their homes, and that the laws are not being abided by, and that they have no control.

Those are pretty obvious concerns. So, I don’t know that you need to ask the questions about why people are feeling activated or potentially radicalizing. I think we know that. The question is, where do we channel that energy instead?

I actually think Minnesota’s an incredible example of where we’re channeling that energy instead. It’s back into community; it’s back towards each other. It’s leaning on one another. Again, if the reason that these violent ideologies, these violent movements are attractive is in part because of need for community belonging, mission, purpose, et cetera, then finding another container for that in your actual lived community is essential.

I think Minnesota’s doing a really, really beautiful job with that. They have training and organizing. They’ve got mutual aid networks. I went to college in Minneapolis and have many friends there. This also comes from the Scandinavian stoic work ethic that operates in Minnesota and has for years. Turning that rage and that effort back to the community is part of how you prevent violence.

I’ve definitely seen posts or heard comments from people who believe peaceful protest isn’t gonna work or who think we need a violent overthrow of the government or of ICE. I think anyone can understand why someone might feel that way. But the Minneapolis community is doing a really good job of wrapping their arms around those folks and bringing them back in. That is an intervention in and of itself. It usually takes feeling like you’re been heard to channel that energy right.

Beth Silvers: I think that the online component is so daunting because in some ways the proximity to the thing also makes it so real to people. They can see that what’s needed right now is that community and that kindness and that sense of looking out for each other and looking after each other. I worry less about people in Minnesota being radicalized honestly, than people who have taken all this in on their screens and aren’t in the middle of efforts to actively, but peacefully resist it, you know?

Hala Furst: It’s such a good point. Look, the internet is a tool and there is community on the internet. I will not say it’s not worthwhile community. It absolutely is. The Pantsuit Politics community is a perfect example. But, when you are ingesting all of this content in a constant barrage without context…

If you see an incident in real life, you have the ability to literally touch grass. You’re out. Let’s say you’re at a protest or something like that. You’re outside. There are other people. There are senses; it’s cold there.

Beth Silvers: And connection. Someone else saw this, too.

Hala Furst: Right. But if you’re just scrolling. You are alone with this little box of horrors. If your instinct after you see something, is to reach out on your phone to your community, okay great. I would argue that’s not sufficient, but it’s a great start. But, if you’re just sitting there ingesting horror after horror after horror, then that is your whole universe.

I had norovirus over the weekend and we were snowed in and this horrific shooting happened in Minneapolis. So even I, as somebody who works in the field, was just sitting there doomscrolling on my phone for hours.

You can feel the despair build up in your body. You can feel this feeling of despair and inevitability and it is really hard to fight that. It takes some amount of conscious effort to step away and take breaks. Again, choose to channel that despair into action. That could be in your local community, donating to mutual aid, or reaching out to other people to think about what you could be doing.

I don’t mean to keep beating the drumbeat of community and belonging, but that’s really at the core of what is necessary. I can’t say from a research perspective what the likelihood of people radicalizing the violence based on these incidents because they’re sitting alone with their phones is, but it’s absolutely a possibility.

I think as we come back to the concept of prevention, again. If you’re getting upstream of this, there’s several layers of prevention: primordial (which is society, legislation, things like that), primary (which is at the community level and where PERIL mostly operates), secondary (which is immediate intervention when someone might already be down the road of radicalization to violence or starting to make effort towards that), and tertiary (which is where someone has commited an act of violence or tried to and we work on bringing them back into the fold).

PERIL operates mostly at that primary level. At the primary level is where you do community training, community awareness raising, and community support. If you’re thinking about a person who’s doing doom scrolling, what resilience has already been built into them to know they need to put the phone down and walk away, or need to take that broken-hearted feeling and channel it into something good for their family or the community? How do we build in those support structures, those protective factors at that community level so that folks have resilience to draw on in these moments? That’s really the question that prevention is trying to ask.

It’s based on the same science that has been working on other forms of violence prevention for years. It’s based on a public health model that the CDC had worked on for 30 years, had been working on for 30 years before all of those people at the Injury and Violence Prevention Center got fired. There’s a ton of research into the efficacy here.

This is not a one-to-one correlation, but I think it works. If you want someone when presented with drugs to not take the drugs, what have you had to do prior to that moment of encountering the drugs to teach them that they shouldn’t? You have to build in the resilience against it and to give them all of the capacity to say no.

Again, it’s not a perfect one-to-one, but it is similar in terms of violence prevention. This goes back to your question about your when your son is presented with Andrew Tate content or whatever. When you are presented with these events, when you are encountering these things, what has already been built up inside of you? Do you have the resilience to not go down a road?

Beth Silvers: I think that’s all really helpful. It’s nice to know that the instincts we have to say, “Hey, you are doing your work by building your community” are backed up by a lot of research. Thank you so much for sharing your insights and your expertise with us. I really appreciate it.

Hala Furst: Thank you for giving us this opportunity to share it.

One final note: several states had state-wide targeted violence prevention strategies either in place or in the process of being developed when the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships was disbanded. Because of the funding and programing vaccuum left by the federal government, states (supported by research and intervention organizations like PERIL) are really taking the lead on violence prevention now, which means constituents are even closer to the levers of power over this issue. If preventing targeted violence in your community is important to you, please call your governor or your state legislators and ask what prevention strategies they are considering. Ask what funding is available to support community programs that bolster protective factors and reduce risk factors. I want folks to know that this violence is not inevitable; it is preventable, and everyone has a role to play- whether that be through policy, direct support of individuals, sharing information, or something in between. A public health approach to violence prevention empowers rather than panics, and right now that is what we most need.

I hope that folks will go to the website and look at our resources. They’re all free on there: our resources for parents, caregivers, educators, administrators, leaders, a whole panel of folks. So, please, if you’re struggling with these issues, take a look, reach out. We want to help.

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Further Listening:

• When the Pitchforks Come for You (Pantsuit Politics conversation with Abby Cox and Joanna Lydgate)

• More to Say About DOGE & Violence Prevention (More to Say)

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