National Institute of Justice Study – Assessing Risk of Terrorist Acts by Looking at Location Data and Demographic and Social Characteristics

This week, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) published the results of a study that combines two existing analytical tools, risk terrain modeling and conjunctive analysis, to link geographic location and the risk of terrorism, with the goal of identifying opportunities for more effective interventions.

To conduct the study, a group of researchers from the University of Arkansas and Rutgers University combined the analytical power of conjunctive analysis and risk terrain modeling to provide a more complete picture of how social and environmental factors intersect in relation to terrorist activity. The study tracked 296 terrorism incidents that occurred in the U.S. from 9/11 through 2019. The team found terrorism-related activities in the U.S. were not evenly distributed geographically. In fact, the top five states – California, New York, Virginia, Texas, and Utah – accounted for 50 percent (148 out of 296) of all incident locations. Consequently, the analysis revealed that areas with the most prominent risk profiles were all associated with high-density populations. Nevertheless, according to the study, “the relatively small number of terrorist attacks in the [U.S.] makes it difficult to collect enough data to assess the risk of terrorism-related events. The researchers noted that, in a typical day, there are more murders in the United States than all the domestic terrorism incidents since 9/11.” Moving forward, understanding the place-related connections between residence, planning, and execution of attacks can give stakeholders better insights into patterns of extremist violence. Read more and access the full study at the NIJ.