Sequencing Terrorists' Precursor Behaviors: A Crime Specific Analysis, United States, 1980-2012 (ICPSR 36676)

Version Date: Apr 23, 2018

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Principal Investigator(s):
Brent Smith, University of Arkansas

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR36676.v1

Version V1

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Summary

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

This study identified the temporal dimensions of terrorists' precursor conduct to determine if these behaviors occurred in a logically sequenced pattern, with a particular focus on the identification of sequenced patterns that varied by group type, group size, and incident type. The study specifically focused on how these pre-incident activities were associated with the successful completion or prevention of terrorist incidents and how they differed between categories of terrorism. Data utilized for this study came from the American Terrorism Study (ATS), a database that includes "officially designated" federal terrorism cases from 1980-October 1, 2016, collected for the National Institute of Justice.

The project focused on three major issues related to terrorists' precursor behaviors:

  • A subgroup analysis of temporal, crime-specific patterns by group type,
  • The nature of the planning process, and
  • Factors associated with the outcomes of terrorist incidents (success or failure).

The collection contains 2 SPSS data files, Final_Hypothesis_Data_Set.sav (n=550; 16 variables) and Final_Sequencing_Antecedent_Temporal.sav (n=2354; 16 variables), and 1 plain text file, Recode_Syntax.txt.

Citation

Smith, Brent. Sequencing Terrorists’ Precursor Behaviors: A Crime Specific Analysis, United States, 1980-2012. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2018-04-23. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR36676.v1

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Funding

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice (2013-ZA-BX-0001)

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

None

Restrictions

Access to these data is restricted. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a Restricted Data Use Agreement, specify the reason for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

1980 -- 2012

Date of Collection

1980 -- 2016

Data Collection Notes

  1. These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

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Study Purpose

The purpose of this study was to ascertain how, and to what extent, temporal limitations manifested themselves in structured or patterned distributions of precursor behaviors by terrorists. The goals of this study were to contribute to the identification of the temporal dimensions of terrorists' precursor conduct to determine if those behaviors occur in a logical sequenced pattern. The study particularly focused on the identification of sequenced patterns that vary by group type, group size, and incident type. It also specified whether characteristics of the planning process associated with these three issues were correlated with the successful completion or prevention of terrorist incidents.

Study Design

Data used in the analysis were compiled from the American Terrorism Study (ATS), an Oracle 11g relational database composed of fifteen tables that include information on the demographic characteristics of terrorism offenders, federal charges and other legal variables, the geocoded locations of perpetrator's residences, pre-incident activities such as meetings and precursor crimes, terrorism incidents in the United States, and temporal data on many of the precursor activities and plotted incidents.

During the time this project was conducted, the ATS was tracking 1,360 federal "terrorism-related" court cases involving 1,922 indictees. These court cases involved 563 failed, foiled, or completed terrorism incidents with 4,305 antecedent (precursor) activities identified during data collection and coding. However, many of the hypotheses that were proposed to be tested involved linking antecedents to specific incidents and required temporal data. These analyses required linking an antecedent act to all terrorism incidents that it was associated with from review of court documents and media articles. In addition, the temporal analyses required dates of both antecedent activities and dates/planned dates of terrorism incidents in order to calculate the lengths of planning cycles. Because of these methodological constraints, the sample size was reduced depending on the specific hypotheses being tested (See Sampling).

Units within the observed data were those federally indicted in domestic terrorism-related cases, and domestic terrorism incidents identified by law enforcement in media, and incidents meeting the FBI's definition of terrorism. The data collection process included information obtained from Online court documents (PACER) and open-source media.

Data was outputted to a flat file database and analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics 23. The analytic method involved calculating measures of central tendency (e.g., median) for each of the variables to demonstrate their temporal sequencing across group type, group size, incident type, and level of success/failure.

Sample

The sampling began with a total of 4,305 unique antecedent activities and 563 incidents within the American Terrorism Study (ATS) database. As the study was interested in looking at and comparing different categories of terrorism, antecedents linked to an incident where the category of terrorism was unknown were eliminated; this reduced the sample size down to 3,989 antecedents and 404 incidents. As the study was interested in antecedent activities linked to the planning or preparation of incidents, antecedents that were not labeled as "preparatory" were excluded, reducing the sample size to 3,525 preparatory activities and 404 incidents. To analyze plan cycle, antecedents and incidents not having an actual or approximate date were removed, reducing the sample size to 2,562 antecedents and 332 incidents. Finally, calculating the plan cycle required measurable dates for both incidents and the antecedents linked to the incidents, by removing those without dates it lowered the sample size to 2,354 antecedent activities and 272 incidents.

Time Method

Cross-sectional

Universe

Far-right domestic terrorism incidents by individuals investigated and prosecuted under the FBI's "domestic security/terrorism enterprise" investigations from 1980 to 2016.

Unit(s) of Observation

Incidents

Data Source

American Terrorism Study (ATS)

Data Type(s)

Description of Variables

This study features two datasets:

  • Final_Hypotheses_Data_Set.sav which is comprised of 16 variables and 550 cases
  • Final_Sequencing_Antecedent_Temporal.sav which is comprised of 16 variables and 2,354 cases

The variables for these data relate to terrorist group type, group size, incident type, and completion or prevention of incidents.

Response Rates

None

Presence of Common Scales

None

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Original Release Date

2018-04-23

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Weight

None

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Notes

  • These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

  • One or more files in this data collection have special restrictions. Restricted data files are not available for direct download from the website; click on the Restricted Data button to learn more.