Generolo Jono Žemaičio Lietuvos karo akademija

The primary concern of this article is to review the knowledge and ability of people to act to protect themselves and others in the face of various risks and hazards, and to manage accident and crisis situations. Relevant issues include the needs and requirements of emergency situations, people’s ability to respond to them, and factors that affect coping ability. The selected sub-areas are practiceoriented and defined in terms of real-world problems rather than theories or scientific concepts. One of the purposes of choosing to structure the review of risk, accident and crisis management psychology in this way is to emphasize the importance of human limitations and capabilities as an element in all areas of activity and responsibility. This approach, in turn, assumes that the review contains a broad theoretical base and multifaceted approaches, which are necessarily treated here rather generically.

This paper focuses on terrorist attacks carried out by so-called ‘lone wolves’ or ‘lone actors’. It provides an analytical evaluation of the basic characteristics of these attackers and discusses possible access to their identification in society. To create the profile of a ‘typical’ lone wolf, we collected information from a database of lone wolves who committed their terrorist attacks in the United States, Canada, the European Union, Switzerland, Norway and Australia from 1998 to 2016. Based on these data, it was demonstrated that lone wolves are not homogenous group, therefore, there is no one ‘typical’ lone wolf. Instead, three main groups of lone wolves were identified: 1) lone wolves with a criminal past, 2) lone wolves with a mental illness and 3) young lone wolves coming from minority groups in the country. These characteristics could be used as an auxiliary tool by state security forces during identification of potential lone wolf terrorists.

The article discusses the problems of the limitations of the human rights in the situations of crisis. The measures of crisis management are undertaken both in international and national levels, but the definitions of crisis and crisis management are rarely provided in legal acts. The article further discusses the theories of national security and their connection with the assurance of human rights. The permanent and temporary limitations of the human rights provided in international and national legal acts are discussed in the context of the measures taken in crisis management.