Criminology and Public Policy 8(3)

"Weapon choice and American political violence": Some policy options
Jack R Greene

Greene examines Richard L. Legault and James C. Hendrickson's research, "Weapon choice and American political violence." Legault and Hendrickson's central argument is that firearm violence differs between those people label criminals and those they label terrorists, but rational choice and situational crime-prevention perspectives and analyses might prove useful for understanding both groups and interdicting such behavior. Their research highlights the differences between federal felons and terrorists, most especially in connection with gaining access to firearms and the use of firearms in the commission of criminal or terrorism acts.

A systemic approach to precursor behaviors
John Wigle

Wigle comments that terrorism metrics are just beginning to emerge, and more work is needed to develop indicators that have an important effect. The academic, law-enforcement, and counterterrorism communities must recognize the value of such data, make it a collection requirement, and finally, develop the capability to interpret the data. Using the latest technology and mathematical models, operations research is a viable option in developing capabilities that optimize terrorism detection and prevention.

Criminologists and terrorism: Finding firearms under lampposts
Brian Forst

Firearms turn up as systematically associated with cases of terrorism--they are more likely to be used by terrorists than by other federal felons. It makes perfectly good sense to restrict the sale or possession of firearms to illegal aliens and people with known terrorist connections or intentions, especially if they have violated laws. Here, Forst discusses prospects in which criminologists can contribute to the development of effective counterterrorism policies.

Critical events in the life trajectories of domestic extremist white supremacist groups: A case study analysis of four violent organizations
Joshua D Freilich, Steven M Chermak, David Caspi

Freilich et al examines the evolution of four domestic far-right racist organizations: Aryan Nations, National Alliance, Public Enemy Number 1 (PEN1), and Oklahoma Constitutional Militia. Information about the groups was compiled through open-source documents, including scholarly, government, watch-group, and media accounts. Freilich et al compare the changes that occurred in these organizations and found that they were influenced by contextual and organizational variables. They focus primarily on the rise of the groups. Also, they examined the fall of the organizations. Three groups declined because of organizational instability and/or responses by law enforcement and nonstate actors, such as watch groups. PEN1--despite periodic internal debates about its mission--has avoided organizational instability and continues to grow.

Data daze
Leonard Weinberg, William Eubank

Weinberg and Eubank comment on Global Terrorism Database. The new GTD collection, however, not only incorporates events involving situations in which the perpetrators and targets are of different national backgrounds, but also it includes domestic terrorist campaigns. The GTD database is then likely to prove exceptionally helpful in providing researchers with important understandings of the status of terrorist violence in different parts of the world. Here, they also discuss ways of addressing the GTD findings.

Patterns of precursor behaviors in the life span of a U.S. environmental terrorist group
Brent L Smith, Kelly R Damphousse

Smith and Damphousse discusses the paucity of data available for assessing the "life span" of a terrorist group. They introduce a new methodology that allows researchers to examine when terrorist groups perform their preincident activities. The findings suggest that differences exist in the temporal patterns of terrorist groups: environmental terrorist groups engage in a relatively short planning cycle compared with right-wing and international terrorists. Smith and Damphousse conclude by examining a case study on "the Family," which is a unique environmental terrorist group that conducted activities over a relatively long period of time. This group provides an interesting contrast to other environmental terrorists. Despite significant organizational differences, their patterns of preparatory conduct were highly similar.

Prisons and fear of terrorism
James Austin

Austin stresses that when people resist invasion and occupation by a foreign and more powerful state by conducting acts of violence, they become labeled as terrorists. Often, these so-called terrorists--especially the leaders of terrorist groups--have no prior criminal behavior that predates their involvement in terrorism. To date, there are no examples of a person who was sentenced to a US prison who later became a terrorist and then inflicted mass destruction on fellow US citizens. But the politics of fear that have been successfully linked to Sept 11, 2001 seem to trump a rational assessment of the potential danger people face from terrorism emanating from the nation's prison system.

Bert Useem, Obie Clayton
Radicalization of U.S. prisoners

Useem and Clayton explore prisoner radicalization, one of the most discussed yet least studied aspects of the domestic terrorism threat. Concern has been expressed that prisoner radicalization poses a high probability threat to the safety of the US. Although the threat of terrorist acts planned in prison is known to be above zero because of a nearly executed terrorist plot hatched in a state prison, the central finding of Useem and Clayton's research is that the actual probability is modest. The reasons for a modest probability are fourfold: Order and stability in US prisons were achieved during the buildup period, prison officials successfully implemented efforts to counter the "importation" of radicalism, correctional leadership infused antiradicalization into their agencies, and inmates' low levels of education decreased the appeals of terrorism.

Smart counterterrorism
William C Banks

Banks considers the policy implications of the article by LaFree, Yang, and Crenshaw in the Aug 2009 issue of Criminology and Public Policy journal. Although he endorses the chief conclusion of the LaFree et al article that greater international cooperation might be the best counterterrorist strategy, he points out barriers to successful implementation of this policy and stresses that it should not occur at the expense of less domestic vigilance. Major barriers to international cooperation on counterterrorism include the absence of internationally recognized definitions of terrorism, the problem of terrorist threats faced by each country being mostly idiosyncratic, the enormous variation in counterterrorist resources of individual nations, and the wariness other countries have regarding real or perceived threats to their sovereignty implied by bilateral or international counterterrorist strategies.

The prison hate machine
Randy Blazak

Blazak assesses the real threat of right-wing extremists in the US. Large and small groups connected to various right-wing ideologies have continued to perpetrate various acts of terrorism and organized criminality. These groups have changed dramatically from the usual cast of characters that law enforcement and civil rights groups concerned themselves with in the late 20th century. Among the growing threats are racist groups that originate in the US penal system.

Criminology and Public Policy, August 2009: Volume 8, Issue 3