The Changing Nature of Terror: Trends of Terrorism in the United States, 2000-2015

Background: The ethos in the United States surrounding terrorism has changed drastically since 9/11. While previous studies, such as Lefree and Dugan (2007) and Pinero Kluch and Vaux (2016), suggest that global incidences of terrorism have increased dramatically since 1970, few studies have explicitly surveyed the context of terrorism in the United States since 9/11. Our study seeks to fill this void by addressing the following three objectives: #1 Determine the prevalence of terrorist incidents in the U.S since 2000 #2 Plot trends in weapon use during attacks in the U.S since 2000 #3 Explore changes in the lethality of attacks in the U.S since 2000 

Methods:

The data is drawn from the Global Terrorism Database (National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism [START], 2016), a database tracking global terrorist incidents from 1970 through 2015. Included is information on over 150,000 terror attacks worldwide (i.e location, date, and type of weapon used in the attack). Terrorist events are defined as “use of illegal force of violence by a non-state actor to attain a political, economic, religious, or social goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation” (START Codebook, p. 9). The current study focuses exclusively on terrorist events in the United States between 2000 and 2015.

Results: Since 2000, 337 terrorist events have been recorded, with an average of 21.1 per year (SD = 11.3; Range=6-41). From 2000 to 2003, the number of terrorist incidents per year were significantly higher than the average, ranging between 32-41. From 2004-2010, the number of events were as few as 6 (2006) and as high as 20 (2005), with an average of 12.7 (SD = 5.5). Over the subsequent 5 years (2011-2015), the number of events per year steadily increased (10, 17 to 19, 26, and 38, respectively). The most common type of weapon was incendiary/explosive devices (71.5%) followed by firearms (14.5%), and other/unknown weapons (13.9%). Beginning in 2011, the proportion of attacks using firearms increased and has risen above the average (10.0 %, 17.6%, 21.5%, 57.7%, and 26.3%, respectively). Of all terrorist attacks reported since the year 2000, 16% of attacks have resulted in injury and 15% of attacks in the death of at least one person. Since 2010, the percentage of attacks resulting in injury fluctuated with a higher of 32% in 2013 and a low of 15.4% in 2014. Conversely, the percentage of attacks resulting in death have increased from 2011-2015 (0%, 6%, 37%, 46%, 24%, respectively). Conclusion and Implications: These data indicate an initial downward trend of terrorist attacks between 2000-2010, followed by an increasing trend over the past 5 years (2011-2015). Despite this increase, the rates of attacks still remain significantly lower than the number of attacks between 1970-1997. However, this decline is offset by an increasing lethality, particularly over the past 5 years (2010-2015). As such, the next generation of trauma informed social work education, practice, and policy must consider terrorism as a reality in the lives of the individuals, families, and communities we serve.