MCBRIDE, MEGAN K.; JENKINS, MONIQUE

From the document: "Within the public violence literature--that is, the literature on domestic terrorism, mass shootings, school shootings, and hate crimes, among others--leakage has been identified as a core warning behavior. Leakage occurs when a would be assailant communicates an intention to harm a target before committing an attack. This communication can vary in timing, level of detail, form, intentionality, and audience. Through such a communication, an individual might directly verbalize an intent to commit an act, make more subtle threats and innuendos, or share a plan via social media. Researchers have found relatively high levels of leakage associated with acts of public violence, including adolescent-perpetrated mass murders, mass shootings, political and public figure assassinations, and domestic terrorism. For this reason, leakage--which often occurs in interactions online or with loved ones--can be an important warning sign. But leakage to family, friends, or acquaintances is not the only way to detect when an individual is intending to commit an act of public violence, and over the last decade, researchers have started to examine preattack contact with system stakeholders, such as law enforcement, mental health, and education professionals. [...] We sought to advance understanding of what percentage of the violent extremist population could be 'catchable' in the sense that an individual had been in previous contact with a system stakeholder (e.g., law enforcement, mental health provider) or had been reported to a system stakeholder (e.g., by a friend or loved one to whom they had intentionally or unintentionally leaked information). To explore this issue, we leveraged a new dataset: the Domestic Terrorism Offender Level Database (DTOLD). The database includes detailed information on the 320 non-Islamist individuals who carried out terrorist attacks in the United States between January 1, 2001, and December 31, 2020. Specifically, we sought to understand what percentage of this population was known to system stakeholders at some point before they perpetrated their attacks." Further information for this document can be found here: www.cna.org/reports/2024/08/domestic-terrorists-contact-with-system-stakeholders-before-attacks

CNA CORPORATION. 2024. 4p.

ByJoshua D. Freilich, Steven M. Chermak, Rachael A. Arietti, and Noah D. Turner

This review focuses on terrorism and extremist crimes, including ideologically motivated hate crimes. Research on these topics has become more rigorous in recent decades, and more scholars have engaged in original data collection. Our assessment found a burgeoning literature that increasingly includes the application of integrated theories, but gaps remain as few studies examine life-course and critical approaches. Our review of the policing of terrorism found a limited evidence base for counterterrorism initiatives. We also found that court/sentencing issues are understudied. We suggest improving data quality in these areas by creating a national data collection protocol on these crimes, enhancing the rigor of offender and victim self-report studies, and requiring more transparency from open-source research efforts. We propose that government agencies fund rigorous evaluations of policing strategies in the terrorism context. Finally, it is hoped that increased access to federal court documents will lead to more scholarly attention on sentencing issues.

Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 7, Page 187 - 209

By Ekrem Ersen Emeksiz

ABSTRACT This research presents Istanbul, Turkey and its law enforcement as a case study for the design of a contingency plan to increase efficiency of counterterrorism efforts and coordination among the agencies. This contingency plan involves the implementation of techniques and strategies based on situational crime prevention, moral panic and crisis theories on predetermined terror targets in the city of Istanbul to reduce the impact of a mega terrorist attack. The research applies the EVIL DONE and CARVER concepts to assess current terrorism risks and threats for critical targets. In assessing risks and threat conditions, this research proposes a contingency plan for law enforcement in Istanbul. The purpose of the contingency plan is to reduce target vulnerabilities and enhance target resilience as well as control moral panic conditions during large-scale terror incidents.

By Nicholas Corsaro, Robin S. Engel, Tamara D. Herold,. Murat Yildirim

The gang and gun violence reduction project implemented in Las Vegas consisted of three components: hot spots deployment, focused deterrence, and place network investigations. This report focuses on the development, implementation, and evaluation of the hot spots strategy. The hot spots strategy involved the strategic deployment of additional saturation police patrols in high-crime locations. Specifically, to address violent street crime, the LVMPD engaged in a 6- month (Nov 1, 2018 to Apr 30, 2019) cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) design of street segments receiving additional hot spots deployment (saturation patrols) and streets receiving patrol as usual (control segments). All potential street segments were identified from an analysis of persistent violent crime hot spots (where intensive police focus has been paid by the violent crime unit officers since January of 2018). Researchers stratified highest risk and independent segments within chronic and persistent hot spot locations. Specifically, 22 treatment segments and 22 control segments were selected to form the evaluation. No treatment segment was within a block or intersection of another treatment or control segment to reduce potential contamination of findings. Deployment of officers to the treatment hot spots occurred via calls for service every day, randomly for a total of two hours of exposure at each hot spot. Officers were instructed to remain at the hot spot for a total of 15 minutes, which is the optimum time for deployment to achieve effects as identified by researchers (Koper, 1995). When reaching the hot spot, officers were also randomly instructed to either stay in their vehicle with the lights on, or patrol the segment on foot. Interviews with arrestees have shown police presence is understood and alters criminal behaviors in patrolled areas (Golub et al., 2003). However, hot spot patrols such as walking are likely to go unnoticed by ordinary citizens (Weisburd, Hinkle, Fameaga, & Ready, 2011). Therefore, using both treatment types (stationary with lights and foot patrol) likely leads to increased awareness of police, thereby reducing criminal activity. The control treatment was for business to occur as usual at the control street segments. Center researchers conducted fidelity assessments during the project implementation phase, in order to ensure that the strategy was being implemented properly. These assessments indicated a strong adherence to the research design. Specifically, the research design called for a total of 2 hours of saturation patrol (in 15-minute increments) each day. Analysis of all hot spot patrols revealed that approximately 1.5 hours of additional patrol was observed each day for 90% of all hot spots. A total of 2 hours of additional patrol as observed for 55% of all hot spots. These findings demonstrate that the LVMPD carried out the hot spots strategy as designed.

Alexandria, VA: International Association of Chiefs of Police, 2019. 43p.

By Ekrem Ersen Emeksiz

ABSTRACT This research presents Istanbul, Turkey and its law enforcement as a case study for the design of a contingency plan to increase efficiency of counterterrorism efforts and coordination among the agencies. This contingency plan involves the implementation of techniques and strategies based on situational crime prevention, moral panic and crisis theories on predetermined terror targets in the city of Istanbul to reduce the impact of a mega terrorist attack. The research applies the EVIL DONE and CARVER concepts to assess current terrorism risks and threats for critical targets. In assessing risks and threat conditions, this research proposes a contingency plan for law enforcement in Istanbul. The purpose of the contingency plan is to reduce target vulnerabilities and enhance target resilience as well as control moral panic conditions during large-scale terror incidents.

Unpublished paper. 2023. 25p.