What Are We Really Afraid Of? The Practitioner View of the Terrorist Threat in the United States
Abstract
Anti-terrorism is fast becoming an integral part of policing in the United States. To meet the unique challenges posed by the threat of terrorism, new skill sets are being added to the traditional functions of professional police organizations. This is happening without much assistance from academia. Professional organizations like the International Association of Chiefs of Police and sections of the Department of Justice have attempted to fill the void, but the law enforcement community still requires guidance via sound empirical research if they are to succeed in meeting this threat to public safety. After all, the threat of terrorism in the United States is not new, it has only gained prominence due to world events. Police executives are being forced to ask the most basic of questions to assess the threat of terrorism in their jurisdictions. Simply put, they need to know of whom they should be afraid. The wide range of unique terrorist groups operating in the United States today, all with very specific goals and tactics, makes the correct identification of the threat the key component to developing an effective anti-terrorism strategy. This question of who can be addressed through the employment of police skills already possessed by professional police organization, such as surveillance and the use of informants. Group identification is only the first, albeit most crucial, step in evaluating local threat. The identification of which groups are predicted to act, and the discovery of why these groups are feared, is also key to developing a true understanding of terrorism. The ultimate value of this research project to policy makers is the illustration of the fact that the answer to the question, Do I have an effective local anti-terrorism - 10 - program? is addressed by first answering the question, Who do I think is the local threat, and why?
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 2005
- Accession Number
- ADA432757
Entities
People
- Mark C. Anarumo
Organizations
- Rutgers University–Newark