Preventing Terrorism: Complex Social, Scientific, and Political Tasks

• Author: L. Sergio Garduno,William D. Bales
• Date: 01 August 2014
• Published date: 01 August 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12110

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

CORRELATES OF TERRORIST ATTACKS

IN THE UNITED STATES

Preventing Terrorism

Complex Social, Scientific, and Political Tasks

L. Sergio Garduno

William D. Bales

Florida State University

This segment of Criminology & Public Policy analyzes correlates of terrorist attacks

in the United States by county. LaFree and Bersani (2014, this issue) analyze

county-level characteristics of where terrorist attacks have occurred in the United

States. Consistent with social disorganization theory, LaFree and Bersani find that terrorist

attacks are more common in counties characterized by higher levels of urbanization, with

a greater proportion of foreign-born residents, high language diversity, and high residential

instability.

Consistent with social disorganization theory, Sherman, Gartin, and Buerger (1989)

found that criminal activity concentrates in specific areas, and those criminal hot spots

remain stable across long periods of time (Weisburd, Bushway, Lum, and Yang, 2004).

Although terrorism and guerrilla warfare committed by government dissidents are not

considered ordinary criminal behaviors, research has found that terrorist and paramilitary

groups also concentrate their violent actions on specific geographic locations (Behlendorf,

LaFree, and Legault, 2012; Johnson and Braithwaite,2009; LaFree, Dugan, Xie, and Singh,

2012; Townsley, Johnson, and Ratcliffe, 2008).

LaFree and Bersani (2014) go beyond the existing level of knowledge concerning

the study of terrorism on geographic locations. They not only study the incidence

of terrorism attacks on specific regions, but also they analyze social, economic, and

urbanization characteristics of geographic areas where terrorist attacks have occurred in

the United States. Specifically, these authors analyze data from 1990 to 2011 from the

Our thanks to Nancy Morris for serving as senior editor on the article “County-Level Correlates of Terrorist

Attacks in the United States” (2014, this issue). Direct correspondence to L. Sergio Garduno, College of

Criminology and Criminal Justice, Florida State University, 112 South Copeland Street, Eppes Hall, Tallahassee,

FL 32306-1273 (e-mail: lsg12b@my.fsu.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12110 C2014 American Society of Criminology 451

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 13 rIssue 3