Assessing the Validity of Open-Source Biographical Data in Terrorism Research

Figures & data

Table 1. Comparing the marital status of terrorism offenders between CF and OS data

Data	N	n	Missing	Single	Married	Divorced	Separated	Widowed
CF	40	40 (100 percent)	0 (0 percent)	20 (50.0 percent)	16 (40.0 percent)	2 (5.0 percent)	2 (5.0 percent)	0 (0 percent)
OS	40	26 (65.0 percent)	14 (35.0 percent)	15 (57.7 percent)	10 (38.5 percent)	1 (3.8 percent)	0 (0 percent)	0 (0 percent)

The total N = 40 deviates from 53 because in 13 cases, there were differences in the time of first terrorist activity. We are interested in the marital status before the first terrorist activity. We therefore removed these cases from the analysis.

Table 2. Comparing the country of birth of terrorism offenders between CF and OS data

Data	N	n	Missing	Europe	Germany	MENA	FSR	South-Asia	SSA	Turkey
CF	53	53 (100 percent)	0 (0 percent)	2 (3.8 percent)	33 (62.3 percent)	7 (13.2 percent)	2 (3.8 percent)	4 (7.5 percent)	2 (3.8 percent)	3 (5.7 percent)
OS	53	40 (75.5 percent)	13 (24.5 percent)	3 (7.5 percent)	25 (62.5 percent)	6 (15.0 percent)	0 (0 percent)	1 (2.5 percent)	2 (5.0 percent)	3 (7.5 percent)

MENA = Middle East and North Africa, FSR = Former Soviet Republic, SSA = Sub-Saharan Africa.

Table 3. Comparing the highest level of education attained by terrorism offenders between CF and OS data

Data	N	n	Missing	None	Primary	Abitur	Vocational training	University
CF	40	40 (100 percent)	0 (0 percent)	2 (5.0 percent)	22 (55.0 percent)	7 (17.5 percent)	9 (22.5 percent)	0 (0 percent)
OS	40	23 (57.5 percent)	17 (42.5 percent)	3 (13.0 percent)	13 (56.5 percent)	3 (13.0 percent)	3 (13.0 percent)	1 (4.3 percent)
Difference				−8	−1.5	+4.5	+9.5	−4.3

The total N = 40 deviates from 53 because in 13 cases, there were differences in the time of first terrorist activity. We are interested in the marital status before the first terrorist activity. We therefore removed these cases from the analysis.

Table 4. Comparing the employment status of terrorism offenders between CF and OS data

Data	N	n	Missing	Employed	In education	Unemployed
CF	40	37 (92.5%)	3 (7.5%)	22 (59.5%)	5 (13.5%)	10 (27.0%)
OS	40	23 (57.5%)	17 (42.5%)	12 (52.2%)	5 (21.7%)	6 (26.1%)
Difference				+7.3	-8.2	+0.9

Note: The total N = 40 deviates from 53 because in 13 cases, there were differences in the time of first terrorist activity. We are interested in the marital status before the first terrorist activity. We therefore removed these cases from the analysis.

Table 5. Comparing the introduction to radicalization contexts of terrorism offenders between CF and OS data

Data	N	n	Missing	Friends/Family	Online	Prison	Abroad	Mosque/Association
CF	53	38 (71.7 percent)	15 (28.3 percent)	13 (34.2 percent)	7 (18.4 percent)	1 (2.6 percent)	1 (2.6 percent)	16 (42.1 percent)
OS	53	25 (47.2 percent)	28 (52.8 percent)	15 (60.0 percent)	4 (16.0 percent)	1 (4.0 percent)	1 (4.0 percent)	4 (16.0 percent)
Difference				−25.8	+2.4	−1.4	−1.4	+26.1

Table 6. Comparing the prevalence of criminality in biographies of terrorism offenders between CF and OS data

Data	N	n	Missing	No previous conviction	Previous conviction	Previous conviction (of total)
CF	53	53 (100 percent)	0 (0 percent)	42 (79.2 percent)	11 (20.8 percent)	11 (20.8 percent)
OS	53	13 (24.5 percent)	40 (75.5 percent)	4 (30.8 percent)	9 (69.2 percent)	9 (17.0 percent)
Difference				+48.8	−48.4	+3.8

Table 7. Comparing the incidence of divorced parents in the biographies of terrorism offenders between CF and OS data

Data	N	n	Missing	No	Yes	Yes (of total)
CF	53	46 (86.8 percent)	7 (13.2 percent)	24 (52.2 percent)	22 (47.8 percent)	22 (41.5 percent)
OS	53	25 (47.2 percent)	28 (52.8 percent)	15 (60.0 percent)	10 (40.0 percent)	10 (18.9 percent)
Difference				−7,8	+7.8	+22.6

Table 8. Comparing the prevalence of absence of father during primary and secondary socialization in biographies of terrorism offenders between CF and OS data

Data	N	n	Missing	No	Yes	Yes (of total)
CF	53	47 (88.7 percent)	6 (11.3 percent)	32 (68.1 percent)	15 (31.9 percent)	15 (28.3 percent)
OS	53	25 (47.2 percent)	28 (52.8 percent)	16 (64.0 percent)	9 (36.0 percent)	9 (17.0 percent)
Difference				+4.1	−4.1	+11.3