What’s behind Australia’s surge in teen extremism?

In March, Guardian Australia revealed that most people who have been charged with the new federal crime of possession of violent extremist material are under 18.

This week Australian federal police sounded the alarm about a surge in teen extremism: 32 of the 37 young people prosecuted in counter-terrorism cases since 2020 were charged in the past two years.

The growth in youth extremism is happening within a sprawling online ecosystem. My investigations have tracked the rise of online networks that urge violence and nihilism for their own sake, in which perpetrators coerce victims not much younger than themselves to commit brutal and degrading acts.

In a review of 55 youth terrorism cases, the AFP has found that the profile is mixed. They are often young men. Many have received some support or intervention for a mental health condition. Some are from stable homes, others not.

What they have most in common is that they are young people on the internet. Experts say the age of those caught up in these crimes is decreasing.

In the last month two teenagers in Darwin have been charged with collecting documents that could facilitate acts of terrorism.

The arrests came five months after another NT teenager was charged with making posts with “pro-Nazi, anti-immigration, anti-trans and white nationalist themes”. The charge sheet alleges he also possessed videos of white nationalist terrorist attacks, including the 2019 Christchurch mosque shooting and the 2022 Buffalo shooting that it partly inspired.

All matters are still before the courts.

Experts involved in harm prevention programs, including the Victoria University professor Debra Smith, have watched the age of this cohort decrease dramatically over the past decade.

Instead of considering the challenge exclusively through the lens of radicalisation, Smith says we need to recognise that some young people are being socialised and finding identity in online spaces that may appear exciting and transgressive but are ultimately harmful to themselves, and may encourage them to do harm to others.

She has seen cases where teenagers are being found with “hard drives full of what can only be described as gore”.

“It’s like getting involved in any other … unhealthy subcultural aspect of life … [such as] gangs or crime for payment,” she says. “There’s this offering of what young people can look at and get involved in that just simply wasn’t there years ago.”

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