Developing Policies for Countering Terrorism

• Author: Paul Wormeli
• Published date: 01 August 2014
• Date: 01 August 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12098

POLICY ESSAY

CORRELATES OF TERRORIST ATTACKS

IN THE UNITED STATES

Developing Policies for Countering

Terrorism

Paul Wormeli

Wormeli Consulting, LLC

The conclusion that county-level predictions of terrorist attacks can be developed

using attributes of social disorganization theory provides a tempting basis for

developing policies that would focus counterterrorism strategies on those counties

that have the highest levels of heterogeneity, residential instability, and urbanization. A

somewhat similar concept emerged in the immediate years after the creation of the Depart-

ment of Homeland Security as a response to the tragedies of September 11, 2001 when

the department struggled to define the areas in the nation of “highest risk” of experiencing

a terrorist attack. Lacking this kind of competent research and having very little basis for

determining the risk to any given county or city, the risk assessments were not based on

much more than guesswork, but there was some notion of grading locations according to

at least the opportunity to make major negative impacts on America’s economy or sense

of security. New York City appeared on most lists as the greatest risk and received federal

funds accordingly.

The decision to focus resources on the most affected counties may not be the wisest

choice. Our policy options today include defining what we want intelligence and law

enforcement agencies to do regarding terrorism, deciding how we want to draw boundaries

on what they do in support of their missions, and allocating resources to the most productive

and effective efforts.

Policy issues regarding the nation’s response to terrorism are much different today than

in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Our failure as a nation to predict these events was to

some extent overshadowed by our national inability to respond coherently, so that much

of the policy debate was then focused on how we might better respond to such disasters.

We spent considerable energy and applied funding around issues such as communications

Direct correspondence to Paul Wormeli, Wormeli Consulting LLC, 21125 Cardinal Pond Terrace, #106,

Ashburn, VA 20147 (e-mail: pwormeli@WormeliConsulting.com).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12098 C2014 American Society of Criminology 493

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 13 rIssue 3