When (and where) can right-wing terrorists be charged with terrorism?

ABSTRACT

As illustrated by the cases of white supremacists Dylan Roof and Robert Bowers, most ideological mass murderers in the US cannot be charged with any federal terrorism offence, even when their attacks clearly qualify as terrorism under federal law. Yet relatively minor offences committed to support a Foreign Terrorist Organisation can be charged as terrorism. Accordingly, nearly all those charged with terrorism are Muslim. This perverse result necessarily furthers Islamophobia and discourages vigilance against right-wing terrorism. To determine whether this imbalance exists in other jurisdictions, this article analyzes terrorism laws in all 50 US states and in 34 other countries. Results indicate that broad terrorism statutes, allowing any major crime fitting a general definition of terrorism to be charged as a terrorism offence, are extremely common (though not universal). The US government’s approach is thus highly anomalous. In addition, exploratory data collection was conducted to investigate whether these statutes are in fact utilised to charge right-wing terrorists with terrorism offences. A number of cases are identified in which prosecutors (in 6 US states and 12 countries) have charged right-wing terrorists with terrorism. The implications of these findings for theory and counterterrorism policy are explored

KEYWORDS:

• Right-wing terrorism
• terrorism law
• terrorism prosecutions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Following Sageman (2016), the term “neo-jihadi” terrorism is used, reflecting the theologically novel way in which violent Islamists employ the term “jihad.”

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Notes on contributors

Jesse J. Norris

Jesse J. Norris is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at the State University of New York at Fredonia. In a series of projects, he examined terrorism sting operations in the US and elsewhere, with a particular focus on entrapment. His research has also analyzed racial disparities in the criminal justice system, earned release from prison, and unconventional forms of terrorism.