Abstract
Terrorism is a form of crime. Yet compared to most types of crime, terrorism poses unique data collection challenges. As a result, even basic descriptive questions about terrorism have been difficult or impossible to answer: What are the long-term trends in terrorist attacks? Is the number of fatalities associated with terrorist attacks increasing over time? What types of attacks are most common? What types of weapons do terrorists use most frequently? How long do terrorist groups last? In this chapter, we analyze data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) to provide a descriptive account of more than 82,000 domestic and international terrorist attacks that occurred between 1970 and 2004. We provide detailed information on global and country-level terrorism trends, regional characteristics of terrorism, and characteristics of the major groups that have employed terrorist methods. We also examine how terrorism rates compare to more common forms of crime. We conclude with a discussion about important research questions for the future.
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Notes
- 1.
It is true that this situation continues to evolve. For example, in the United States in 1995, Chap. 3B of the Federal Criminal Code and Rules added “Terrorism” as a separate offense and the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act was signed into law in 1996. Among other things, the 1996 act attempts to cut fundraising by those affiliated with terrorist organizations, enhances the security measures employed by the aviation industry, and expands the reach of US law enforcement over selected crimes committed abroad. Similarly, the US Patriot Act, passed in 2001, strengthens criminal laws against terrorism by adding to the criminal code terrorist attacks against mass transportation systems, domestic terrorism, harboring or concealing terrorists, or providing material support to terrorists (115 Stat. 374, Public Law 107–56–26 October, 2001). Nevertheless, it still remains the case that most of those persons who are officially designated as terrorists in the annual reports produced by the FBI are either not prosecuted at all (e.g., the likely outcome for many of those detained at the US’s Guantanamo Detention Facility) or are prosecuted under traditional criminal statutes. “At the time of this publication, we have yet to see how the Obama administration will influence these procedures.”
- 2.
The current committee includes Gary Ackerman, Victor Asal, Martha Crenshaw, Laura Dugan, Michelle Keeney, Gary LaFree, Clark McCauley and Alex P. Schmid.
- 3.
To interpolate subsets of the total terrorist attacks for 1993, we use the following formula:
$$ Attacks\,{ 93 }(subset) = \frac{{\frac{{Attachs\,{92(}subset{\rm ) } \times {\rm}Attacks\,{93 (}total{\rm )}}}{{Attacks\,{92}{\rm (}total)}} + \frac{{Attacks\,{94}(subset){\rm} \times {\rm }Attacks\,{93 (}total)}}{{Attacks\,{92 (}total)}}}}{2}$$ - 4.
In addition, the START Center recently completed in a National Institute of Justice funded project (LaFree and Dugan, 2005) with the RAND Corporation that is combining the RAND-MIPT data base and the GTD. Results from this project suggest that RAND terrorism attack counts from 1998 forward increase dramatically starting around 2003. These increases are due in large part to an exploding number of cases being classified as terrorist from Iraq and Afghanistan. (Dugan, LaFree, Cragin, and Kasupski 2008)
- 5.
We have excluded military-grade landmines from this category because their proliferation in some regions has made them relatively commonplace compared to the other types of sophisticated explosives.
- 6.
We hasten to add that our data on abortion-related attacks were far more complete for the United States than for other countries – which likely accounts for at least part of this result. Even though many attacks on abortion clinics fit the definition of terrorism being employed here, abortion-related attacks have not yet been systematically included in most open source terrorism data bases. This issue clearly requires more research attention in the future.
- 7.
Mexico and Puerto Rico are counted here as part of Latin America.
- 8.
This calculation leaves out data for 1993.
- 9.
Note that our analysis here includes only attacks on the soil of specific countries; we do not measure the nationality of the intended target or the nationality of the terrorist group. Thus, attacks on Turkish nationals living in France and attacks by Turkish nationals operating in France are both coded here as attacks on France. While the vast majority of all attacks within particular countries are, in fact, aimed at nationals within those countries and are committed by terrorist groups from these same countries, there is of course variation across countries and over time. We are exploring these relationships in ongoing research.
- 10.
It is also important to note that many of these countries had other failure problems co-occurring or occurring very closely in time to terrorism campaigns. If we determined that these other failures would have occurred independently of the terrorism episodes, we classified the country as having failed.
- 11.
While the GTD excludes attacks on the military by uniformed military or by guerilla organizations, it includes military targets that are attacked by sub state groups where there is a political, economic or social motive.
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Acknowledgment
Support for this work was provided by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), grant number 2002-DT-CX-0001 and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), grant number N00140510629. We would like to thank Erin Miller, Susan Fahey and Brandon Behlendorf for assistance with data analysis. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of NIJ or DHS.
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LaFree, G., Dugan, L. (2009). Tracking Global Terrorism Trends, 1970–2004. In: Weisburd, D., Feucht, T., Hakimi, I., Mock, L., Perry, S. (eds) To Protect and To Serve. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-73685-3_3
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