A Mixed Methods Exploration of the Relationship between Target Hardening and Differential Terrorist Attack Outcomes

Abstract

We used a convergent mixed methods design to explore the relationship between target hardening and the successfulness of terrorist attacks for 94 jihadi-inspired incidents in the United States between 1990 and 2018. Our quantitative analysis reveals that only 12% of incidents with no target hardening were unsuccessful, whereas over 80% of incidents with a law enforcement/military presence and physical/electronic security were unsuccessful. Qualitatively, we examined four case studies to contextualize these findings and explore the nuances in the relationship between target hardening and attack outcomes. We conclude that target hardening must be tailored to the size and scope of a potential target and may be most effective when several different mechanisms, capable of detecting and addressing potential threats, are leveraged simultaneously.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Meghan E. Hollis, Marcus Felson, and Brandon C. Welsh, “The Capable Guardian in Routine Activities Theory: A Theoretical and Conceptual Reappraisal,” Crime Prevention and Community Safety 15, no. 1 (2013): 65–79.

2 Ronald V. Clarke, “Situational Crime Prevention,” Crime and Justice 19 (1995): 91–150; Lawrence E. Cohen, and Marcus Felson, “Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach,” American Sociological Review (1979): 588–608.

3 Clarke, “Situational Crime Prevention”; Derek Blaikie Cornish, and Ronald V. Clarke, “Opportunities, Precipitators and Criminal Decisions: A Reply to Wortley’s Critique of Situational Crime Prevention,” Crime Prevention Studies 16 (2003): 41–96.

4 Clarke, “Situational Crime Prevention.”

5 Ronald V. G. Clarke, and Graeme R. Newman. Outsmarting the Terrorists. Praeger Security Intl, 2006.

6 Clarke and Newman, Outsmarting the Terrorists; Joshua D. Freilich, Jeff Gruenewald, and Marissa Mandala, “Situational Crime Prevention and Terrorism: An Assessment of 10 Years of Research,” Criminal Justice Policy Review 30, no. 9 (2019): 1283–311.

7 Jeff Gruenewald, Kayla Allison-Gruenewald, and Brent R. Klein, “Assessing the Attractiveness and Vulnerability of Eco-Terrorism Targets: A Situational Crime Prevention Approach,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 38, no. 6 (2015): 433–55; Henda Y. Hsu, and David McDowall, “Does Target-Hardening Result in Deadlier Terrorist Attacks Against Protected Targets? An Examination of Unintended Harmful Consequences,” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 54, no. 6 (2017): 930–57.

8 Brent R. Klein, Jeff Gruenewald, and Brent L. Smith, “Opportunity, Group Structure, Temporal Patterns, and Successful Outcomes of Far-Right Terrorism Incidents in the United States,” Crime & Delinquency 63, no. 10 (2017): 1224–49.

9 John W. Creswell, and Vicki L. Plano Clark, Designing and Conducting Mixed Methods Research (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage publications, 2017).

10 Timothy C. Hart, “Conjunctive Analysis of Case Configurations,” The Encyclopedia of Research Methods in Criminology and Criminal Justice 2 (2021): 444–6.

11 Cohen and Felson, “Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach.”

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 Gruenewald, Allison-Gruenewald, and Klein, “Assessing the Attractiveness and Vulnerability of Eco-Terrorism Targets: A Situational Crime Prevention Approach.”

16 Clarke and Newman, Outsmarting the Terrorists.

17 Cohen and Felson, “Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach.”

18 Hollis, Felson, and Welsh, "The Capable Guardian in Routine Activities Theory: A Theoretical and Conceptual Reappraisal,”

19 Ibid, 76.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid.

24 Applying this dimension of RAT to terrorism can be challenging. Terrorists often seek to influence the U.S. public or government to achieve social or political ends by attacking both individuals and places. Thus, RAT’s conceptual distinction between capable guardians and the target itself may be limited.

25 Clarke, “Situational Crime Prevention”; Clarke and Newman, Outsmarting the Terrorists.

26 Clarke, “Situational Crime Prevention,” 91.

27 Leanna Ireland, “Predicting Online Target Hardening Behaviors: An Extension of Routine Activity Theory for Privacy-Enhancing Technologies and Techniques,” Deviant Behavior 42, no. 12 (2021): 1534; Clarke, “Situational Crime Prevention.”

28 John E. Eck, “The Threat of Crime Displacement,” Criminal Justice Abstracts 25, no. 3 (1993): 527–46; John E. Eck, and Rob T. Guerette, “Place-Based Crime Prevention: Theory, Evidence, and Policy,” in The Oxford Handbook of Crime Prevention (2012), 354–83; Rob T. Guerette, “The Pull, Push, and Expansion of Situational Crime Prevention Evaluation: An Appraisal of Thirty-Seven Years of Research,” Crime Prevention Studies 24 (2009): 29–58; Rob T. Guerette, and Kate J. Bowers, “Assessing the Extent of Crime Displacement and Diffusion of Benefits: A Review of Situational Crime Prevention Evaluations,” Criminology 47, no. 4 (2009): 1331–68; Brandon C. Welsh, and David P. Farrington, “Effects of Improved Street Lighting on Crime,” Campbell Systematic Reviews 4, no. 1 (2008): 1–51.

29 Guerette, "The Pull, Push, and Expansion of Situational Crime Prevention Evaluation: An Appraisal of Thirty-Seven Years of Research."

30 Brandon C. Welsh, and David P. Farrington, “Public area CCTV and Crime Prevention: An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” Justice Quarterly 26, no. 4 (2009): 716–45.

31 Alex Hirschfield, Andrew Newton, and Michelle Rogerson, “Linking Burglary and Target Hardening at the Property Level: New Insights into Victimization and Burglary Protection,” Criminal Justice Policy Review 21, no. 3 (2010): 319–37; Shane D. Johnson, Toby Davies, Alex Murray, Paul Ditta, Jyoti Belur, and Kate Bowers, “Evaluation of Operation Swordfish: A Near-Repeat Target-Hardening Strategy,” Journal of Experimental Criminology 13, no. 4 (2017): 505–25.

32 Robert R. Weidner, “Target-Hardening at a New York City Subway Station: Decreased Fare Evasion–at What Price,” Crime Prevention Studies 6 (1996): 117–32.

33 Welsh and Farrington, "Effects of Improved Street Lighting on Crime,”

34 Tamara D. Madensen, “Bar Management and Crime: Toward a Dynamic Theory of Place Management and Crime Hotspots”(PhD diss., University of Cincinnati, 2007); Tamara D. Madensen, and John E. Eck, “Crime Places and Place Management,” in The Oxford Handbook of Criminological Theory (2013).

35 Barry Poyner, “Situational Crime Prevention in Two Parking Facilities,” Security Journal 2, no. 1 (1991): 96–101; Henk Van Andel, “Crime Prevention That Works: The Care of Public Transport in the Netherlands,” The British Journal of Criminology 29, no. 1 (1989): 47–56; Brandon C. Welsh, Mark E. Mudge, and David P. Farrington, “Reconceptualizing Public Area Surveillance and Crime Prevention: Security Guards, Place Managers and Defensible Space,” Security Journal 23, no. 4 (2010): 299–319.

36 Paul Barclay, Jennifer Buckley, Paul J. Brantingham, Patricia L. Brantingham, and Terry Whinn-Yates, “Preventing Auto Theft in Suburban Vancouver Commuter Lots: Effects of a Bike Patrol,” Crime Prevention Studies 6 (1996): 133–61; Rene Hesseling, “Displacement: A Review of the Empirical Literature,” Crime Prevention Studies 3, no. 1 (1994): 97–230; Gloria Laycock, and Claire Austin, “Crime Prevention in Parking Facilities,” Security Journal 3, no. 3 (1992): 154–60.

37 Anthony A. Braga, Brandon Turchan, Andrew V. Papachristos, and David M. Hureau, “Hot Spots Policing of Small Geographic Areas Effects on Crime,” Campbell Systematic Reviews 15, no. 3 (2019): e1046; Eric L. Piza, Andrew P. Wheeler, Nathan T. Connealy, and Shun Q. Feng, “Crime Control Effects of a Police Substation Within a Business Improvement District: A Quasi-Experimental Synthetic Control Evaluation,” Criminology & Public Policy 19, no. 2 (2020): 653–84; Jerry H. Ratcliffe, Travis Taniguchi, Elizabeth R. Groff, and Jennifer D. Wood, “The Philadelphia Foot Patrol Experiment: A Randomized Controlled Trial of Police Patrol Effectiveness in Violent Crime Hotspots,” Criminology 49, no. 3 (2011): 795–831; Sarit Weisburd, “Police Presence, Rapid Response Rates, and Crime Prevention,” Review of Economics and Statistics 103, no. 2 (2021): 280–93.

38 Gruenewald Freilich, and Mandala, “Situational Crime Prevention and Terrorism: An Assessment of 10 Years of Research.”

39 Clarke and Newman, Outsmarting the Terrorists.

40 Ibid.

41 B. Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017).

42 Victor Asal, Paul Gill, R. Karl Rethemeyer, and John Horgan, “Killing Range: Explaining Lethality Variance within a Terrorist Organization,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 59, no. 3 (2015): 401–27; J. Bowyer Bell. The Secret Army: The IRA. Transaction Publishers, 1997; Daniel Marston, and Carter Malkasian, eds. Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2011).

43 Victor Asal, and R. Karl Rethemeyer, “The Nature of the Beast: Organizational Structures and the Lethality of Terrorist Attacks,” The Journal of Politics 70, no. 2 (2008): 437–49; Jeff Goodwin, “A Theory of Categorical Terrorism,” Social Forces 84, no. 4 (2006): 2027–46.

44 Franklin E. Zimring, “The Medium is the Message: Firearm Caliber as a Determinant of Death from Assault,” The Journal of Legal Studies 1, no. 1 (1972): 97–123.

45 Steven Chermak, Joshua D. Freilich, William S. Parkin, Jeff Gruenewald, Colleen Mills, Brent Klein, Leevia Dillon, and Celinet Duran, “Far-Right Extremist Violence in the United States,” in Right-Wing Extremism in Canada and the United States (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), 301–26.

46 Graeme R. Newman, and Henda Y. Hsu, “Rational Choice and Terrorist Target Selection,” Countering Terrorism: Psychosocial Strategies (2012): 227–49.

47 Clarke and Newman, Outsmarting the Terrorists.

48 Clarke, “Situational Crime Prevention.”

49 Gruenewald, Allison-Gruenewald, and Klein, “Assessing the Attractiveness and Vulnerability of Eco-Terrorism Targets: A Situational Crime Prevention Approach.”; Hsu and McDowall, "Does Target-Hardening Result in Deadlier Terrorist Attacks Against Protected Targets? An Examination of Unintended Harmful Consequences."; Klein, Gruenewald, and Smith, “Opportunity, Group Structure, Temporal Patterns, and Successful Outcomes of Far-Right Terrorism Incidents in the United States.”; Marissa Mandala, and Joshua D. Freilich, “Disrupting Terrorist Assassinations Through Situational Crime Prevention,” Crime & Delinquency 64, no. 12 (2018): 1515–37.

50 Clarke and Newman, Outsmarting the Terrorists.

51 Ibid., 293–4.

52 Cornish, Clarke, and Smith, “Opportunities, Precipitators and Criminal Decisions: A Reply to Wortley’s Critique of Situational Crime Prevention.”

53 Clarke and Newman, Outsmarting the Terrorists, 294.

54 Freilich, Gruenewald, and Mandala, “Situational Crime Prevention and Terrorism: An Assessment of 10 Years of Research.”

55 Hsu and McDowall, "Does Target-Hardening Result in Deadlier Terrorist Attacks Against Protected Targets? An Examination of Unintended Harmful Consequences."

56 Ibid.

57 Charles J. M. Drake, “The Role of Ideology in Terrorists’ Target Selection,” Terrorism and Political Violence 10, no. 2 (1998): 53–85; Todd Sandler, John T. Tschirhart, and Jon Cauley, “A Theoretical Analysis of Transnational Terrorism,” American Political Science Review 77, no. 1 (1983): 36–54.

58 Klein, Gruenewald, and Smith, “Opportunity, Group Structure, Temporal Patterns, and Successful Outcomes of Far-Right Terrorism Incidents in the United States.”

59 Gruenewald, Allison-Gruenewald, and Klein, “Assessing the Attractiveness and Vulnerability of Eco-Terrorism Targets: A Situational Crime Prevention Approach.”

60 Klein, Gruenewald, and Smith, “Opportunity, Group Structure, Temporal Patterns, and Successful Outcomes of Far-Right Terrorism Incidents in the United States.”

61 Creswell and Clark, Designing and Conducting Mixed Methods Research.

62 Joshua D. Freilich, Steven M. Chermak, Roberta Belli, Jeff Gruenewald, and William S. Parkin, “Introducing the United States Extremist Crime Database (ECDB),” Terrorism and Political Violence 26, no. 2 (2014): 372–84.

63 This protocol involved searching the case through the following search engines: (1) Lexis-nexis, (2) Proquest, (3) Yahoo, (4) Google, (5) Copernic, (6) News Library, (7) Westlaw, (8) Google Scholar, (9) Amazon, (10) Google U.S. Government, (11) Federation of American Scientists, (12) Google Video, (13) Center for the Study of Intelligence, (14) Surf Wax, (15) Dogpile, (16) Mamma, (17) Librarians Internet Index, (18) Scirus, (19) All the Web, (20) Google News, (21) Google Blog, (22) Homeland Security Digital Library.

64 Joel A. Capellan, “Lone Wolf Terrorist or Deranged Shooter? A Study of Ideological Active Shooter Events in the United States, 1970–2014,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 38, no. 6 (2015): 395–413; Drake, "The Role of Ideology in Terrorists’ Target Selection."

65 Jeff Gruenewald, Brent R. Klein, Joshua D. Freilich, and Steven Chermak, “American Jihadi Terrorism: A Comparison of Homicides and Unsuccessful Plots,” Terrorism and Political Violence 31, no. 3 (2019): 516–35.

66 William S. Parkin, Joshua D. Freilich, and Steven M. Chermak, “Ideological Victimization: Homicides Perpetrated by Far-Right Extremists,” Homicide Studies 19, no. 3 (2015): 211–36.

67 Per the ECDB, foiled plots are incidents that were stopped before the final stages of the planned incident, either through suspect desistance or law enforcement action. Failed plots, alternatively, are incidents that were set in motion but stopped either due to suspect failure or law enforcement action during the final stages of the planned incident. Thus, foiled plots are excluded from the present sample because they were never attempted, but failed plots are included because as the perpetrator took overt steps towards carrying out the attack.

68 In several cases, law enforcement would conduct sting operations, acting as undercover terrorist operatives, and provide fake bombs for a suspect to deliver to an attack site. In these conditions, the effects of target hardening measures were clearly not associated with the unsuccessful attack, thus these cases were excluded.

69 See Appendix A for target type, attack type, weapon use, and group affiliation characteristics for the incidents in the (N = 94) sample.

70 Madensen and Eck, "Crime Places and Place Management."

71 Ibid.

72 Clarke and Newman, Outsmarting the Terrorists; Cohen and Felson, “Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach.”

73 Klein, Gruenewald, and Smith, “Opportunity, Group Structure, Temporal Patterns, and Successful Outcomes of Far-Right Terrorism Incidents in the United States.”; Gruenewald, Allison-Gruenewald, and Klein, “Assessing the Attractiveness and Vulnerability of Eco-Terrorism Targets: A Situational Crime Prevention Approach.”

74 Law enforcement and military were originally coded as separate mechanisms but were combined into one mechanism for parsimony in the quantitative analysis and because very few incidents had a military presence. Specifically, only three cases had a military presence, and all three cases also had a law enforcement presence.

75 Timothy C. Hart, Callie Marie Rennison, and Terance D. Miethe, “Identifying Patterns of Situational Clustering and Contextual Variability in Criminological Data: An Overview of Conjunctive Analysis of Case Configurations,” Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 33, no. 2 (2017): 112–20.

76 Creswell and Clark, Designing and Conducting Mixed Methods Research.

77 Matthew B. Miles, and A. Michael Huberman, Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook (Sage, 1994).

78 Clarke and Newman, Outsmarting the Terrorists.

79 Miles and Huberman, Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook.

80 Bent Flyvbjerg, “Five Misunderstandings about Case-Study Research,” Qualitative Inquiry 12, no. 2 (2006): 219–45.

81 Hart, "Conjunctive Analysis of Case Configurations."; See Appendix B for full truth matrix.

82 Note that all information in the following case studies is from the ECDB search documents. Any information that was found outside of these search documents was in-text cited. These documents are available upon request.

83 Robert K. Yin, “Validity and Generalization in Future Case Study Evaluations,” Evaluation 19, no. 3 (2013): 321–32.

84 There are mixed reports as to if this concrete barrier was intended to prevent cars from driving on campus. Some reports suggest it was a concrete planter the suspect accidentally veered into. Nonetheless, we maintain that because the barrier ultimately stopped the vehicle’s progression it impacted the outcome of the attack.

85 Rector, Daniel, “Security Lessons Learned – Part 1, Boston Marathon Bombings,” Domestic Preparedness. Last modified September 01, 2021. Retrieved from: https://www.domesticpreparedness.com/preparedness/security-lessons-learned-part-1-boston-marathon-bombings/ (accessed 4 November 2021).

86 Ibid.

87 Ibid.

88 Ibid.

89 Ibid.

90 Even though the perpetrator did not inflict physical harm on any other person, this case meets the ECDB’s inclusion criteria as failed terrorist plot because it involved the threat of a violent crime and overt steps taken towards carrying out the attack

91 Hollis, Felson, and Welsh, "The Capable Guardian in Routine Activities Theory: A Theoretical and Conceptual Reappraisal,”

92 Clarke and Newman, Outsmarting the Terrorists.

93 For an exception, see Klein, Gruenewald, and Smith, “Opportunity, Group Structure, Temporal Patterns, and Successful Outcomes of Far-Right Terrorism Incidents in the United States.”

94 Cohen and Felson, “Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach.”

95 Clarke and Newman, Outsmarting the Terrorists.

96 Ibid.

97 Michael, George, “Leaderless resistance: The new face of terrorism,” Defence Studies 12, no. 2 (2012): 257–82.

98 Clarke, “Situational Crime Prevention”

99 Gruenewald et al., "American Jihadi Terrorism: A Comparison of Homicides and Unsuccessful Plots."

100 Cynthia Lum, and Daniel Nagin, “Reinventing American Policing: A Six-Point Blueprint for the 21st Century,” Crime and Justice: A Review of Research (2015); Daniel S. Nagin, “Deterrence in the Twenty-First Century,” Crime and Justice 42, no. 1 (2013): 199–263; Daniel S. Nagin, Robert M. Solow, and Cynthia Lum, “Deterrence, Criminal Opportunities, and Police,” Criminology 53, no. 1 (2015): 74–100.

101 For an alternative view, see: Justin T. Pickett, and Sean Patrick Roche, “Arrested Development: Misguided Directions in Deterrence Theory and Policy," Criminology & Public Policy 15, no. 3 (2016): 727–51.

102 Nagin, Solow, and Lum, "Deterrence, Criminal Opportunities, and Police.”

103 This variable is drawn from the ECDB Codebook. The operationalizations for each category are as follows: (1) Acted Alone: These individuals planned, prepared for, and executed the attack by themselves, with no cooperation or support from any other persons; (2) No clear group boundaries: These are small groups of like-minded individuals who plan, prepare for, and execute the attack only while working with each other. They do not have any group structure in place but cooperate with each other to carry out the attack; (3) Part of an informal group: These individuals act on behalf of a group with some of the characteristics of formalized groups, but not all of them. Groups may operate under a certain name, but lack a hierarchical structure, or vice versa. These individuals mostly act under their own direction and dedicate the attack to a specific group or movement; (4) Part of a formal group: These individuals act under the direction of a group which operates under a specific name, has a hierarchical leadership structure, has recruiting/financing processes in place, and established goals that all group members subscribe to.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported in part by the Early Start Grant Program in the College of Social Science at Michigan State University. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the MSU College of Social Science. The authors would also like to thank Steven Chermak, Thomas Holt, Merry Morash, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback on this study.