Abstract
This study seeks to answer the question “What are police doing to counter terrorism?” We use a multistep process to unearth these global tendencies of police responses. First, we review existing studies which have surveyed police agencies about their counterterrorism activities. To supplement this existing research, we then report preliminary findings from three new studies currently underway by the authors and others. We conclude by providing an agenda for future research and action given this exercise. Specifically, the one major lesson that emerges that influences our agenda is: Despite the proliferation and spending on police counterterrorism efforts, very little is known about the nature and effectiveness of police counterterrorism strategies. Clearly, building the knowledge and a research infrastructure to support such knowledge with regard to police counterterrorism strategies is an essential and currently missing component of this research and action arena.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
In the United States, of the recent appropriation of $34 billon allocated to homeland security, “key investments” included moneys to improve local, state, and federal law enforcement and first responder prevention, preparation, response, coordination, and training activities (See Summary: 2008 Homeland Security Appropriations by the US House of Representatives, Committee on Appropriations http://appropriations.house.gov/pdf/HomelandHP.pdf).
- 2.
We decided to exclude the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s “Post 9–11 Policing Project” report (International Association of Chiefs of Police, 2005), as it was more focused on understanding the priorities, perceptions, and feelings of law enforcement executives with regard to how September 11th affected change (both positive and negative) in their agencies.
- 3.
See Davis et al. (2004:4–8, 129–137) (Appendix A) for a full description of that study’s methodology.
- 4.
These 400 agencies included the 200 largest police agencies in the United States and a random sample of 200 agencies of the remaining US law enforcement agencies.
- 5.
The 2003 LEMAS dataset and survey instrument can also be viewed and downloaded at www.icpsr.umich.edu.
- 6.
The full survey instrument can be accessed at http://gunston.gmu.edu/clum/Resources/USDOJ-MOPSSurvey.pdf
- 7.
The survey was sent to numerous individuals for comments, additions, and deletions. Additionally, Dr. Allan Turner, a program manager for the Department of Homeland Security who specializes in knowledge related to law enforcement counterterrorism technologies, was also consulted.
- 8.
See Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA Patriot Act) Act of 2001, H. R. 3,162, 107th Congress. Retrieved May 1, 2007 from http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname = 107_cong_public_lawsanddocid = f:publ056.107.pdf.
- 9.
See http://www.ppdonline.org/hq_terrorism.php. This hotline provides information to the public in both English and Arabic.
- 10.
See http://www.nypdshield.org/public/about.aspx. This program provides private businesses and security with information regarding terrorism risk and alerts and also to receive information from this sector.
- 11.
In 2006, SO15 took over the responsibilities of the Anti-Terrorist Branch (SO13) and the Special Branch (SO12).
- 12.
The “velvet glove” approach refers to a politically sensitive interrogation technique used on suspects of terrorist activities, where the guiding principle is not necessarily to elicit confessions or intelligence, but rather a larger concern for how the method of the interrogation and the investigative techniques will be perceived by the larger group of passive supporters in the community from which the suspect was apprehended. The TNP counterterrorism unit appeared concerned about alienating passive supporters who may turn into active supporters.
- 13.
Determining what the term “effectiveness” means regarding terrorism is fraught with difficulties in and of itself (Lum et al., 2006b; Spencer, 2006), especially given the complex nature and “delicate balances” of policing in democracies (Amir and Einstein, 2001; Crelinsten, 2007). Effective tactics may also have costly collateral effects, which must also be included in evaluations (and cost-benefit analyses) of the use of counterterrorism interventions.
- 14.
This was the subject of a discussion between Martha Crenshaw, Clark McCauley, Jerrold Post, and Jeff Victoroff in a special panel hosted by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) of the University of Maryland at the National Press Club in Washington, DC (November 28, 2006).
References
M.Amir and S. Einstein (eds). 2001. Policing, Security and Democracy: Theory and Practice. Huntsville, TX: Office of International Criminal Justice.
A.G. Arnold, G. R. DiPietro, C.W. Mucha, A.M. Sadwski, C.W. Schaffer, R.S. Sigamoney, C.H. Sinex, and W.F. Smith. 2000. Analysis of Communications Effectiveness for First Responders during TOPOFF 2000. Technical Report. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice.
J-P. Brodeur. 1983. High and low policing: Remarks about the policing of political activities. Social Problems 30(5): 507–520.
J. Cauley and E.I. Im. 1988. Intervention policy analysis of skyjackings and other terrorist incidents. The American Economic Review 78(2): 27–31.
P. Chalk and W. Rosenau. 2004. Confronting the Enemy Within: Security, Intelligence, the Police, and Counterterrorism in Four Democracies. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.
R.V.G. Clarke. 1983. Situational crime prevention: Its theoretical basis and practical scope. In: M. Tonry and N. Morris (eds). Crime and Justice: An Annual Review of Research (Vol. 4). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
R.V.G. Clarke. 1992. Situational Crime Prevention: Successful Case Studies. Albany, NY: Harrow and Heston.
R.V.G. Clarke and D.B. Cornish. 1983. Crime Control in Britain: A Review of Policy Research. Albany, NY: State University of Albany Press.
R.V.G. Clarke and G.R. Newman. 2006. Outsmarting the Terrorists. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Council of State Governments and Eastern Kentucky University. 2006. The Impact of Terrorism on State Law Enforcement: Adjusting to New Roles and Changing Conditions. US: National Institute of Justice. http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/216643.pdf
R.D. Crelinsten. 2007. Counterterrorism as global governance: A research inventory. In: M. Ranstorp (ed). Mapping Terrorism Research: State of the Art, Gaps and Future Direction. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
H.J. Davies and G.R. Murphy. 2004. Protecting Your Community from Terrorism: Strategies for Local Law Enforcement Series (Vol. 2). Working With Diverse Communities. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services and Police Executive Research Forum.
L.M. Davis, J.K. Riley, G. Ridgeway, J.E. Pace, S.K. Cotton, P. Steinberg, K. Damphousse, and B.L. Smith. 2004. When Terrorism Hits Home: How Prepared are State and Local Law Enforcement? Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.
J.F. Donnermeyer. 2002. Local preparedness for terrorism: A view from law enforcement. Police Practice and Research 3(4): 347–360.
J.E. Eck. 2002. Preventing crime at places. In: L.W Sherman, D.P. Farrington, B.C. Welsh, and D.L. MacKenzie (eds). Evidence-Based Crime Prevention. London, UK: Routledge.
W. Enders and T. Sandler. 1993. The effectiveness of antiterrorism policies: A vector-autoregression-intervention analysis. The American Political Science Review 87(4): 829–844.
W. Enders, T. Sandler, and J. Cauley. 1990. UN conventions, terrorism, and retaliation in the fight against terrorism: An econometric evaluation. Terrorism and Political Violence 2(1): 83.
C.C. Fair. 2005. Urban Battle Fields of South Asia: Lessons Learned From Sri Lanka, India, and Pakistan. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.
M.R. Haberfeld and L. Gideon. 2008. Policing is hard on democracy or democracy is hard on policing? In: M.R. Haberfeld and I. Cerrah (eds). Comparative Policing: The Struggle for Democratization. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
M.R. Haberfeld, J. King, and C.A. Lieberman. (in press, 2009). Counter-terrorism response around the world: a comparative perspective. NIJ Final Report.
Independent Commission on Policing in Northern Ireland. 1999. A New Beginning: Policing in Northern Ireland. The report of the independent commission of policing for Northern Ireland. Norwich, UK: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office.
M. Innes. 2006. Policing uncertainty: Countering terror through community intelligence and democratic policing. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 605(1): 222–241.
International Association of Chiefs of Police. 2005. Post 9–11 Policing: The Crime Control – Homeland Security Paradigm. US: US Department of Justice. http://www.theiacp.org/pubinfo/finalpost911policing.pdf.
B. Jongman. 2007. Research desiderata in the field of terrorism. In: M. Ranstorp(ed). Mapping Terrorism Research: State of the Art, Gaps and Future Direction. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
S.A. Loyka, D.A. Faggiani, and C. Karchmer. 2005. Protecting Your Community from Terrorism: Strategies for Local Law Enforcement (Vol. 4): The Production and Sharing of Intelligence. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services and the Police Executive Research Forum.
C. Lum. 2005. Tip Line Technologies: Intelligence Gathering and Analysis Systems. Phase I Final Report and Executive Summary. SPAWAR (Department of the Navy)/National Institute of Justice Grant. http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/211677.pdf.
C Lum. 2007. Preferences of police supervisors from twenty-two democratizing countries: Community-oriented policing or zero tolerance? Unpublished manuscript.
C. Lum, L.W. Kennedy, and A. Sherley. 2006a. The Effectiveness of Counterterrorism Strategies: A Campbell Systematic Review. Campbell Collaboration System Reviews. http://www.campbellcollaboration.org/doc-pdf/Lum_Terrorism_Review.pdf
C. Lum, L.W. Kennedy, and A. Sherley. 2006b. Are counter-terrorism strategies effective? The results of the Campbell systematic review on counter-terrorism evaluation research. Journal of Experimental Criminology 2(4): 489–516.
C. Lum and C. Koper. (Forthcoming). Is crime prevention relevant to counter-terrorism? In: B. Forst, J. Greene, and J. Lynch (eds). Security and Justice in the Homeland: Criminologists on Terrorism.
S.D. Mastrofski. 2006. Community policing: A sceptical view. In: Police Innovation: Contrasting Perspectives. In: D. Weisburd and A. Braga (eds). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
S.D. Mastrofski and R.R. Ritti. 2000. Making sense of community policing: A theoretical perspective. Police Practice and Research 1: 183–210.
C. McCauley. 2007. War versus justice in response to terrorist attacks: Competing frames and their implications. In: B. Bonger, L.M. Brown, L.E. Beutler, J.N. Brekenridge, and P.C. Zimbardo (eds). Psychology of Terrorism. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations. 2004. Policing in the Netherlands. The Hague, Netherlands. http://www.politie.nl/Overige/Images/33_85725.pdf.
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks. 2004. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. [Authorized Paperback Edition published by W.W. Norton and Company].
National Research Council. 2004. Fairness and Effectiveness in Policing: The Evidence. In: W. Skogan and K. Frydl (eds). Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
M. Norell. 2005. Swedish National Counter Terrorism Policy after ‘Nine-Eleven’: Problems and Challenges. Stockholm, Sweden: Swedish Defence Research Agency (Report No: FOI-R-1618-SE). http://www.foa.se/upload/pdf/foi-norell-r-1618.pdf.
C. Norris and G. Armstrong. 1999. The Maximum Surveillance Society: The Rise of CCTV. Oxford, UK: Berg.
J.K. Riley and B. Hoffman. 1995. Domestic Terrorism: A National Assessment of State and Local Preparedness. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/2005/MR505.pdf.
L.W. Sherman, D. Gottfredson, D.L. MacKenzie, J.E. Eck, P. Reuter, and S. Bushway. 1997. Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn’t, What’s Promising: A Report to the United States Congress. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice.
L.W. Sherman, D.P. Farrington, B.C. Welsh, and D.L. MacKenzie (eds). 2002. Evidence-Based Crime Prevention. London, UK:Routledge.
A. Spencer. 2006. The Problems of Evaluating Counter-Terrorism. Madrid: University of Madrid (UNISCI), Research Unit on International Security and Cooperation; Discussion Papers, No: 12.
F.S Taxman and T. McEwen. 1997. Using geographical tools with interagency work groups to develop and implement crime control strategies. In: D. Weisburd and T. McEwen (eds). Crime Mapping and Crime Prevention: Crime Prevention Studies (Vol. 8). Monsey, NY: Criminal Justice Press.
F.S. Taxman, J.M. Byrne, and M.H. Thanner. 2002. Evaluating the Implementation and Impact of a Seamless System of Care for Substance Abusing Offenders: The HIDTA Model. Maryland: University of Maryland Centre for Applied Policy Studies Bureau of Governmental Research.
S. Telhami. 2002. The Stakes: America and the Middle East. Boulder, CO: Westview.
T.R. Tyler. 1990. Why People Obey the Law. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
US Department of Homeland Security. 2003a. Top Officials (TOPOFF) Exercise Series (TOPOFF 2) After Action Summary Report. Washington, DC: US Department of Homeland Security. http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/T2_Report_Final_Public.doc.
US Department of Homeland Security. 2003b. Vulnerability Assessment Methodologies Report. Washington, DC: Office of Domestic Preparedness, Department of Homeland Security. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/odp/docs/vamreport.pdf.
US Department of Homeland Security. 2006. Commercial Equipment Direct Assistance Program Equipment Catalogue (CEDAP Catalogue). Washington, DC: US Department of Homeland Security.
US Department of Homeland Security. 2007. Fiscal Year 2007 Commercial Equipment Direct Assistance Program guidance. Washington, DC: US Department of Homeland Security. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/odp/docs/FY07_CEDAP_GUIDANCE.pdf.
US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance. 2006. Fusion Centre Guidelines: Developing and Sharing Information and Intelligence in a New Era. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice. http://www.iir.com/global/products/fusion_center_guidelines_law_enforcement.pdf.
US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2006. Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS): 2003 Sample Survey of Law Enforcement Agencies [Computer file, ICPSR04411-v1, Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [producer and distributor]. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice.
US Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation. 2004. Report to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States: The FBI’s Counterterrorism Program since September 2001. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice. http://www.fbi.gov/publications/commission/9–11commissionrep.pdf
US Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General. 2005. The Department of Justice’s Terrorism Task Forces. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice. http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/reports/plus/e0507/final.pdf.
US House of Representatives. 2004. Effective Strategies against Terrorism: Hearing before the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations of the Committee on Government Reform. 108th Congress, 2nd SessionFebruary 3http://www.mipt.org/pdf/Effective-Strategies-Against-Terrorism.pdf
D. Weisburd and J.E. Eck. 2004. What can police do to reduce crime, disorder, and fear? Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 593: 42–65.
D. Weisburd, O. Shalev, and M. Amir. 2002. Community policing in Israel: Resistance and change. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management 25(1): 80–109.
D.Weisburd, T. Jonathan, S. Perry. (Forthcoming). The Israeli model for policing terrorism: Goals, strategies and open questions. Criminal Justice and behavior
B.C. Welsh and D.P. Farrington. 2003. Effects of closed-circuit television on crime. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 587: 110–135.
C.Whitlock. 2004. French push limits in fight on terrorism: Wide prosecutorial powers draw scant public dissent. The Washington Post, 2 November. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17082–2004Nov1?language = printer (accessed July 12, 2007)
P. Wilkinson. 2007. Research into terrorism studies: Achievements and failures. In: M. Ranstorp (ed). Mapping Terrorism Research: State of the Art, Gaps and Future Direction. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lum, C., Haberfeld, M.(., Fachner, G., Lieberman, C. (2009). Police Activities to Counter Terrorism: What We Know and What We Need to Know. 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_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-73685-3_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-73684-6
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-73685-3
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)