Joshua D. Freilich

Distinguishing “Loner” Attacks from Other Domestic Extremist Violence

Research Summary Recent reports have suggested that “loner” extremists, or self-radicalized extremists with no ties to organized groups who commit an ideologically motivated attack on their own, represent a growing threat to public safety in the United States. Disagreements among scholars and policy makers about contributing factors of loner attacks have led to competing predictions based largely on anecdotal evidence. Our study contributes to the understanding of loner violence by comparatively examining lethal attacks committed by far-right extremist loners and other far-rightists in the United States between 1990 and 2010. More than 20 of the leading claims from the literature on extremist loner violence are examined. The systematic comparison of far-right loners and other far-rightists presented in this article highlights ways in which loners are different from other far-rightists. Bivariate comparisons found that far-right loners are more likely to have a military background, less likely to be married, and more likely to plan on dying at commission of the crime, live alone, use a firearm, kill multiple victims, and select government targets. Loners also were similar to other far-right extremists on a large number of measures. Using a multivariate analysis, we tested what factors are particularly important for distinguishing between loners and other far-right offenders net the effects of other variables. Variables that significantly distinguished loners from other far-right homicide offenders include military background, age, mental illness, and relationship status. Policy Implications The findings highlight several important differences between loners and other types of violent extremists that could be used by policy makers and analysts to craft policies and strategies designed to prevent and preempt loner extremism. It seems that increased emphasis on intelligence, the use of undercover operations and informants, and task force strategies are in many ways working to prevent attacks committed by extremists. Although steps must always be taken to ensure that civil rights are not violated, our results provide direction for modifying and redirecting some ongoing counterterrorism efforts to prevent future loner attacks. We conclude with a discussion on how building or enhancing extant partnerships, information sharing, technological surveillance, and sharpening threat assessment capabilities could enhance current strategies to thwart loner violence.

Introducing the United States Extremis Crime Database (ECDB)

This note describes a new and unique, open source, relational database called the United States Extremist Crime Database (ECDB). We first explain how the ECDB was created and outline its distinguishing features in terms of inclusion criteria and assessment of ideological commitment. Second, the article discusses issues related to the evaluation of the ECDB, such as reliability and selectivity. Third, descriptive results are provided to illustrate the contributions that the ECDB can make to research on terrorism and criminology.

Gang Membership, Gun Carrying, and Employment: Applying Routine Activities Theory to Explain Violent Victimization Among Inner City, Minority Youth Living in Extreme Poverty∗

Conceptual inconsistencies in routine activities theory are illustrated by demonstrating how gang membership, gun carrying, and employment can be categorized as both risk and protective factors in a high‐poverty context. Two waves of longitudinal data from a high‐poverty sample of African American youth were used to examine the determinants of victimization risk. Bivariate analyses indicated that gang membership, gun carrying, and employment status are significant risk factors for violent victimization, but these effects were mediated by measures of lifestyles (e.g., demographic and family factors, deviant lifestyles) included as controls in the full multivariate model. In other words, the strong positive relationship between gang membership and gun carrying found in previous studies may be due to model misspecification and/or the lack of research on high‐poverty samples of inner city youth from the Deep South. Additional logistic regression analyses also indicate that the number of hours employed per week (but not employment status) is a risk factor for violent victimization. Finally, the theoretical implications of these findings for routine activities theory are discussed.

The Organizational Dynamics of Far-Right Hate Groups in the United States: Comparing Violent to Nonviolent Organizations

Few studies have explored the factors that distinguish violent from nonviolent far-right hate groups. We examine four categories of factors on hate groups: (1) Organizational capacity, (2) Organizational constituency, (3) Strategic connectivity, and (4) Structural arrangements. Age and size, groups in conflict, groups led by charismatic leaders, groups that advocated for leaderless resistance tactics, and region increased a groups propensity to commit violence. Groups that published ideological literature were significantly less likely to be violent. By identifying factors that distinguish violent from nonviolent groups, this study helps us better understand characteristics of violent far-right hate groups in the United States.

Criminology Theory and Terrorism: Introduction to the Special Issue

In this short essay, we introduce readers to a special issue of Terrorism and Political Violence on criminological approaches to the study of terrorism. In addition to summarizing the eight articles in the issue, we outline some general points about the relationship between criminological thinking and our understanding of terrorism. Our goal is to place the special issues contributions in context and highlight under-explored issues that future research could address.

The Elusive Data on Supermax Confinement

This exploratory research examines supermax confinement in the United States. An examination of counts of supermax institutions and inmates from 2001-2004 produced by the American Correctional Association and an examination of Criminal Justice Institute data found that different procedures made it difficult to compare numbers across states. Certain states produced incorrect figures about the number of supermax prisons and inmates because of reporting and/or recording errors. This study found, in short, that disagreements about definitions, changing policies and court decisions, reporting and recording errors, and different counting procedures have led to a lack of reliable and valid data on supermax issues. These findings indicate that researchers attempting to examine, or collect data on, supermax issues on the macrolevel (e.g., across states) face important difficulties. This article accounts for this confusion, discusses policy implications that may result from this confusion, and concludes with suggestions for future research.

Far-Right Lone Wolf Homicides in the United States

Little is known about the nature of far-right lone wolf terrorism and how this form of violence varies across different types of suspects. Relying on data from the Extremist Crime Database (ECDB), we comparatively examine characteristics of far-right homicides in the United States perpetrated by suspects with no evident affiliations with domestic terrorist organizations. Surprisingly, we found that this form of lone wolf terrorism has generally not increased during the past decade. We also found important differences, such as in suspects’ mental health, in statuses of homicide offenders who operate alone compared to those who associate or act with others.

Law enforcement training and the domestic far right

This article examines issues related to training as it pertains to domestic terrorism in general and responding to far-right extremists in particular. First, it hightlights current training practices and training focused on the far right. Second, it details knowledge about the nature and extent of the threat posed by far-right extremists. Third, a review of the empirical research indicates that training could be enhanced if three key issues are emphasized: Future training should promote a better understanding of the contours of the far right; discuss the unique geographic, crime-incident, and structural characteristics of the far right; and describe the need to examine all ideologically motivated crimes, regardless of whether they are also defined as terrorist. The conclusion discusses how training could be enhanced by strategically integrating the existing knowledge base.

Routine Activities and Right-Wing Extremists: An Empirical Comparison of the Victims of Ideologically- and Non-Ideologically-Motivated Homicides Committed by American Far-Rightists

This study examines whether Criminologys Routine Activities Theory (RAT) and related Lifestyle Theory (LST) can account for variation between the attributes of victims of fatal ideologically motivated attacks (akin to terrorism) and the victims of non-ideologically motivated homicide incidents committed by far-Right extremists in the United States. This article makes four contributions. First, we empirically test Criminology theory in the context of terrorism by using routine activities to devise four core hypotheses to explain differences between the two types of victims. Second, our investigation uniquely includes a non-terrorist comparison group (i.e., victims of homicides committed by extremists for personal reasons like greed). Third, our study focuses on ideological victimization. Terrorism researchers have usually ignored victims because of the difficulty in accessing the necessary data. Finally, we also make a methodological contribution by showing that criminology can build upon the terrorism literature by utilizing open-sources. Using data from the Extremist Crime Database (ECDB), the results of a multivariate analysis partially supported the hypotheses, showing that RAT and LST offer empirically supported theoretical constructs that have the ability to differentiate between ideological and non-ideological homicides.

Surveying American State Police Agencies About Lone Wolves, Far-Right Criminality, and Far-Right and Islamic Jihadist Criminal Collaboration

This study presents state police agencies’ perceptions about three significant terrorism issues on which there is little empirical research. All three issues have significant implications for understanding the role of state police agencies in responding to terrorism threats. First, the authors investigated whether the respondents believed that supporters of specified extremist movements tended to commit crimes as lone wolves, with others, or both alone and with others. Second, they were asked to provide data to gauge how often far-right extremists committed 13 crime types that varied in magnitude and motivation. Third, they were asked if they had knowledge about whether far-right extremists and Islamic jihadists had cooperated to commit crimes. These data were collected by surveying the 50 state police agencies in the United States. The results indicate that state police officials are concerned with both group and lone-wolf activities. Importantly, there was variation in the potential for lone-wolf crimes when comparing different types of extremist movements. The results indicate that far-right extremists are involved in a range of terrorist, preparatory, and routine criminal activities, but this involvement varies by region. Two state police agencies also indicated that they knew of Islamic and far-right collaboration. The study identified two other instances of direct collaboration and a number of other interesting cases through open source searches. The article concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of the findings and outlines directions for future research.