Attacks from lone terrorists in the US are more severe than those who are affiliated with groups

US counterterrorism officials continue to grapple with the issue of lone actor terrorism. However, the extent to which these individuals are more dangerous than group-affiliated terrorists is unclear. In new research, Noah Turner, Steven Chermak, and Joshua Freilich investigate the severity of lone actor terrorist attacks compared to those of other terrorists. They find that lone actors do commit more severe attacks than other terrorists, particularly when both fatalities and injuries are considered

K-12 School Shootings in Context: New Findings from The American School Shooting Study (TASSS)

The American School Shooting Study (TASSS) is an ongoing mixed-method project funded by the National Institute of Justice to catalog US school shootings. It has amassed data based on open sources and other public materials dating back to 1990. This brief presents new insights from TASSS, diving deeper into the database's potential to examine the locations, timing, and student involvement of youth-perpetrated gun violence

Understanding Law Enforcement Intelligence Processes: Report to the Office of University Programs, Science and Technology Directorate

Despite clear evidence of significant changes, very little research exists that examines issues related to the intelligence practices of state, local, and tribal (SLT) law enforcement agencies. Important questions on the nature of the issues that impact SLT intelligence practices remain. While there is some uncertainty among SLT law enforcement about current terrorism threats, there is certainty that these threats evolve in a largely unpredictable pattern. As a result there is an ongoing need for consistent and effective information collection, analysis and sharing. Little information is known about perceptions of how information is being shared between agencies and whether technologies have improved or hurt information sharing, and little is known about whether agencies think they are currently prepared for a terrorist attack, and the key factors distinguishing those that think they are compared to those who do not. This study was designed to address these issues, and a better understanding of these issues could significantly enhance intelligence practices and enhance public safety.This research was supported by the Department of Homeland Science and Technology Directorate’s Office of University Programs through Award Number 2012-ST-061-CS0001, Center for the Study of Terrorism and Behavior (CSTAB) 2.13 made to START to investigate the understanding and countering of terrorism within the U.S. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security or START

American jihadi terrorism: A comparison of homicides and unsuccessful plots

While the number of American jihadi terrorist attacks remains relatively rare, terrorist plots thwarted by law enforcement have increased since September 11, 2001. Although these law enforcement blocks of would-be terrorists are considered counterterrorism triumphs by the FBI, human rights and civil liberty watch groups have conversely suggested that those who plan for attacks alongside government informants and undercover agents may be unique and essentially dissimilar from terrorists. Underlying this debate is the empirical question of how planned yet unsuccessful attacks and their plotters compare to successful terrorist homicides and their perpetrators. The current study addresses this question by comparatively examining jihadi terrorist homicides and unsuccessful plots occurring in part or wholly on U.S. soil between 1990 and 2014. Data for this study come from the U.S. Extremist Crime Database (ECDB), an open-source database with information on terrorism and extremist crimes. Based on these data, descriptive statistics are provided for several incident, offender, and target variables across three jihadi terrorist violence categories, including homicides, plots with specified targets, and plots with non-specific targets. We find several important differences across categories of terrorist violence, suggesting that unsuccessful plotters and their intended crimes vary from their more successful terrorist counterparts

Understanding the Intelligence Practices of State, Local, and Tribal Law Enforcement Agencies

In addition, the study examined the activities of three fusion centers in order to identify strategies that are successful in increasing the information flow across agencies, the major obstacles to effective intelligence-gathering and information-sharing, and identify key practices for integrating domestic intelligence into the information-sharing environment and overcoming these obstacles. The study found that although significant progress has been made since 9/11 in installing fundamental policy and procedures related to building the intelligence capacity of law enforcement, there is significant room for improvement and a need to move agencies forward to be consistent with key requirements. Also, fusion centers are further along in instituting intelligence policies and practices than are individual law enforcement agencies. This is most likely because there has been a focus on developing fusion center operations and expertise by both the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice. In addition, both samples of respondents emphasized that they have worked at building relationships with a diverse range of agencies, but they also indicated that they are not completely satisfied with these relationships. Further, there is a significant amount of information coming into and going out of these agencies. It is likely that without sufficient analysts within the organizations or poorly trained analysts, there are missed opportunities for strategic and tactical understanding of homeland security and criminal threats. Assessing the performance of analysts is difficult, but respondents emphasized the need to focus on the quality of strategic and tactical products produced

Law Enforcement’s Information Sharing Infrastructure: A National Assessment

The September 11 attacks impacted society generally, and law enforcement specifically, in dramatic ways. One of the major trends has been changing expectations regarding criminal intelligence practices among state, local, and tribal (SLT) law enforcement agencies and the need to coordinate intelligence efforts and share information at all levels of government. In fact, enhancing intelligence efforts has emerged as a critical issue for the prevention of all threats and crimes. To date, an increasing number of SLT law enforcement agencies have expanded their intelligence capacity, and there have been fundamental changes in the national, state, and local information sharing infrastructure. Moreover, critical to these expanding information sharing expectations is the institutionalization of fusion centers (FCs). Despite these dramatic changes, an expanding role, and the acknowledgement that local law enforcement intelligence is critical to the prevention and deterrence of threats and crimes, very little research exists that highlights issues related to the intelligence practices of SLT law enforcement agencies and FCs.1 This research describes what agencies are doing to build an intelligence capacity and assesses the state of information sharing among agencies. Specifically, a national survey was developed to examine the experiences of SLT agencies and FCs for building an intelligence capacity as well as to understand critical gaps in the sharing of information regarding intelligence

A Mixed-Method Analysis of Fatal Attacks on Police by Far-Right Extremists

Several recent high-profile homicides of police officers have brought increased attention to issues of far-right extremist violence in the United States. We still, however, know very little about why (and how) certain encounters between far-right extremists and police result in violence. To fill this research gap, we conduct a mixed-method analysis of far-right antipolice homicides based on quantitative and qualitative data from the U.S. Extremist Crime Database. We begin by categorizing cases based on key aspects of homicide storylines. We then comparatively analyze attributes of event precursor, transaction, and aftermath stages across four storyline categories. Finally, a case study is purposively selected to follow-up on each storyline category to better capture the nuances of fluid homicide processes. Our findings have important implications for identifying triggering events, escalation factors, and other situated sets of conditions and circumstances that contribute to deadly outcomes for police officers