Estimating the Prevalence of Entrapment in Post-9/11 Terrorism Cases

How many of the terrorism convictions since September 11, 2001 have been the product of entrapment? Some scholars and journalists have suggested that the number is quite high. One report went so far as to claim that only 1% of terrorism prosecutions involve “real” terrorism. The government’s defenders, at the opposite extreme, come close to saying that entrapment in a terrorism case is a contradiction in terms. Little empirical basis exists for evaluating these competing claims. Existing literature on terrorism and entrapment is typically based on detailed discussions of a few egregious cases, rather than systematic analysis of the phenomenon. Yet estimating the prevalence of entrapment is critical for evaluating the ethics and effectiveness of contemporary counterterrorism policies. This Article remedies this dearth of information by creating and analyzing a database of terrorism prosecutions since 9/11 (n=580), and coding each of the cases involving an informant (n=317) for twenty indicators of potential entrapment. An analysis of the database reveals that entrapment indicators are widespread among terrorism cases, and that the most serious cases, involving specific plots to commit attacks, have significantly more indicators. Cases with several indicators account for a sizable proportion of all cases, especially among alleged cases of jihadi and left-wing terrorism. These results show that facts and allegations supporting an entrapment defense are not confined to a small number of cases, but rather are quite widespread in post-9/11 terrorism cases. The Article also examines the suggestion by a journalist that only 1% of terrorism cases have represented a real security threat. It estimates that the proportion of terrorism prosecutions likely to have thwarted genuine terrorism threats is somewhat higher, though still small—about 9% of all jihadi cases and 5% of jihadi cases involving informants. In light of these findings, the Article recommends that authorities rethink current counterterrorism strategies, concentrating on passive surveillance instead of attempts to coax law-abiding Muslims into terrorist schemes, and shifting more resources toward preventing right-wing terrorism. Finally, the Article proposes reforms that would require the government to have a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity before inducing a suspect into committing a crime, and that would base the entrapment defense on the defendant’s realistic likelihood of committing an offense without government prompting

Estimating the Prevalence of Entrapment in Post-9/11 Terrorism Cases

How many of the terrorism convictions since September 11, 2001 have been the product of entrapment? Some scholars and journalists have suggested that the number is quite high. One report went so far as to claim that only 1% of terrorism prosecutions involve “real” terrorism. The government’s defenders, at the opposite extreme, come close to saying that entrapment in a terrorism case is a contradiction in terms. Little empirical basis exists for evaluating these competing claims. Existing literature on terrorism and entrapment is typically based on detailed discussions of a few egregious cases, rather than systematic analysis of the phenomenon. Yet estimating the prevalence of entrapment is critical for evaluating the ethics and effectiveness of contemporary counterterrorism policies. This Article remedies this dearth of information by creating and analyzing a database of terrorism prosecutions since 9/11 (n=580), and coding each of the cases involving an informant (n=317) for twenty indicators of potential entrapment. An analysis of the database reveals that entrapment indicators are widespread among terrorism cases, and that the most serious cases, involving specific plots to commit attacks, have significantly more indicators. Cases with several indicators account for a sizable proportion of all cases, especially among alleged cases of jihadi and left-wing terrorism. These results show that facts and allegations supporting an entrapment defense are not confined to a small number of cases, but rather are quite widespread in post-9/11 terrorism cases. The Article also examines the suggestion by a journalist that only 1% of terrorism cases have represented a real security threat. It estimates that the proportion of terrorism prosecutions likely to have thwarted genuine terrorism threats is somewhat higher, though still small—about 9% of all jihadi cases and 5% of jihadi cases involving informants. In light of these findings, the Article recommends that authorities rethink current counterterrorism strategies, concentrating on passive surveillance instead of attempts to coax law-abiding Muslims into terrorist schemes, and shifting more resources toward preventing right-wing terrorism. Finally, the Article proposes reforms that would require the government to have a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity before inducing a suspect into committing a crime, and that would base the entrapment defense on the defendant’s realistic likelihood of committing an offense without government prompting

Self-reported pain treatment practices among U.S. and Canadian adults : Findings from a population survey

Peer reviewe

Patient engagement in designing, conducting, and disseminating clinical pain research : IMMPACT recommended considerations

The consensus recommendations are based on the views of IMMPACT meeting participants and do not necessarily represent the views of the organizations with which the authors are affiliated. The following individuals made important contributions to the IMMPACT meeting but were not able to participate in the preparation of this article: David Atkins, MD (Department of Veterans Affairs), Rebecca Baker, PhD (National Institutes of Health), Allan Basbaum, PhD (University of California San Francisco), Robyn Bent, RN, MS (Food and Drug Administration), Nathalie Bere, MPH (European Medicines Agency), Alysha Croker, PhD (Health Canada), Stephen Bruehl, PhD (Vanderbilt University), Michael Cobas Meyer, MD, MBS (Eli Lilly), Scott Evans, PhD (George Washington University), Gail Graham (University of Maryland), Jennifer Haythornthwaite, PhD (Johns Hopkins University), Sharon Hertz, MD (Hertz and Fields Consulting), Jonathan Jackson, PhD (Harvard Medical School), Mark Jensen, PhD (University of Washington), Francis Keefe, PhD (Duke University), Karim Khan, MD, PhD, MBA (Canadian Institutes of Health Research), Lynn Laidlaw (University of Aberdeen), Steven Lane (Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute), Karen Morales, BS (University of Maryland), David Leventhal, MBA (Pfizer), Jeremy Taylor, OBE (National Institute for Health Research), and Lena Sun, MD (Columbia University). The manuscript has not been submitted, presented, or published elsewhere. Parts of the manuscript have been presented in a topical workshop at IASP World Congress on Pain in Toronto, in 2022.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A simple measure with complex determinants: investigation of the correlates of self-rated health in older men and women from three continents

Self-rated health is commonly employed in research studies that seek to assess the health status of older individuals. Perceptions of health are, however, influenced by individual and societal level factors that may differ within and between countries. This study investigates levels of self-rated health (SRH) and correlates of SRH among older adults in Australia, United States of America (USA), Japan and South Korea. We conclude that when examining correlates of SRH, the similarities are greater than the differences between countries. There are however differences in levels of SRH which are not fully accounted for by the health correlates. Broad generalizations about styles of responding are not helpful for understanding these differences, which appear to be country- and possibly cohort-specific. When using SRH to characterize the health status of older people, it is important to consider earlier life experiences of cohorts as well as national and individual factors in later life. Further research is required to understand the complex societal influences on perceptions of health.The Australian data on which this research is based were drawn from several Australian longitudinal studies including: the Australian Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ALSA), the Australian Longitudinal Study of Women’s Health (ALSWH) and the Personality And Total Health Through Life Study (PATH). These studies were pooled and harmonized for the Dynamic Analyses to Optimize Ageing (DYNOPTA) project. DYNOPTA was funded by a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) grant (# 410215)

Research objectives and general considerations for pragmatic clinical trials of pain treatments: IMMPACT statement

Many questions regarding the clinical management of people experiencing pain and related health policy decision-making may best be answered by pragmatic controlled trials. To generate clinically relevant and widely applicable findings, such trials aim to reproduce elements of routine clinical care or are embedded within clinical workflows. In contrast with traditional efficacy trials, pragmatic trials are intended to address a broader set of external validity questions critical for stakeholders (clinicians, healthcare leaders, policymakers, insurers, and patients) in considering the adoption and use of evidence-based treatments in daily clinical care. This article summarizes methodological considerations for pragmatic trials, mainly concerning methods of fundamental importance to the internal validity of trials. The relationship between these methods and common pragmatic trials methods and goals is considered, recognizing that the resulting trial designs are highly dependent on the specific research question under investigation. The basis of this statement was an Initiative on Methods, Measurement, and Pain Assessment in Clinical Trials (IMMPACT) systematic review of methods and a consensus meeting. The meeting was organized by the Analgesic, Anesthetic, and Addiction Clinical Trial Translations, Innovations, Opportunities, and Networks (ACTTION) public-private partnership. The consensus process was informed by expert presentations, panel and consensus discussions, and a preparatory systematic review. In the context of pragmatic trials of pain treatments, we present fundamental considerations for the planning phase of pragmatic trials, including the specification of trial objectives, the selection of adequate designs, and methods to enhance internal validity while maintaining the ability to answer pragmatic research questions

Celebrity culture and demographic change: The case of celebrity nonmarital fertility, 1974-2014

Background: In recent years, demographers have proposed increasingly sophisticated models of culture's relationship to demographic patterns and change. However, little research theorizes or empirically examines how celebrity culture might shape demographic norms, despite the pervasiveness of celebrity news. Objective: I argue that demographic theories of culture and social networks can be fruitfully expanded to address the role of celebrity culture. Empirically, I evaluate the quality and quantity of US news on celebrity nonmarital fertility since the mid-1970s, examining dominant framings of and responses to nonmarital fertility, and comparing celebrities' nonmarital birth ratios to those of the general US population. Methods: People magazine covers, 1974-2014, were coded for all celebrity fertility-related stories, and analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. Nonmarital birth ratios from People were compared with those from US vital statistics. Results: People has consistently presented nonmarital conceptions - and, in its later years, nonmarital births - in a highly positive light. Celebrity fertility-related news spiked appreciably beginning approximately in the year 2000. Engagement (rather than marriage) has become an increasingly common response to celebrity nonmarital conceptions. Celebrities have lower nonmarital fertility rates than the general population, but among non-Hispanic whites who attended college, celebrities have had higher rates. Contribution: News about celebrity fertility is increasingly common, and highlights positive framings of nonmarital fertility. Although these findings do not permit strong causal claims, they suggest that celebrity news may have contributed to the destigmatization of US nonmarital fertility, especially among college-educated non-Hispanic whites. Demographic research could benefit from deeper scholarly engagement with celebrity and popular culture

Age and sex effects in anchoring vignette studies: methodological and empirical contributions

"Anchoring vignettes are an increasingly popular tool for identifying and correcting for group differences in use of subjective ordered response categories. However, existing techniques to maximize response consistency (use of the same standards for self-ratings as for vignette-ratings), which center on matching vignette characters' demographic characteristics to respondents' own characteristics, appear at times to be ineffective or to pose interpretive difficulties. Specifically, respondents often appear to neglect instructions to treat vignette characters as age peers. Furthermore, when vignette characters' sex is matched to respondents' sex, interpretation of sex differences in rating style is rendered problematic. This study applies two experimental manipulations to a national American sample (n=1,765) to clarify best practices for enhancing response consistency. First, an analysis of two methods of highlighting vignette characters' age suggests that both yield better response consistency than previous, less prominent means. Second, a comparison of ratings of same- and opposite-sex vignette characters suggests that, with avoidable exceptions, the sex of the respondent rather than of the vignette character drives observed sex differences in rating style. Implications for interpretation and design of anchoring vignette studies are discussed. Findings also show significant sex, educational, and racial/ethnic differences in styles of rating health, and racial/ethnic differences in styles of rating political efficacy. These findings underscore the incomparability of unadjusted subjective self-ratings across demographic groups." (publisher's description