Critical Releases in Homeland Security: July 18, 2018

"It is now well-known that Russian hackers targeted voter registration databases in at least 21 states and attempted to access credentials of election technology vendors and election officials. If these attacks had succeeded, hackers could have deleted voter registration records, altered poll books, caused chaos on Election Day, and potentially swayed the results of the election. Moreover, the Intelligence Community has warned that foreign actors will likely continue to seek to interfere in our elections. In May, Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen said, 'We see [Russia] continuing to conduct foreign influence campaigns.' In June, Robert Mueller echoed this finding, stating in a court filing that foreign 'individuals and entities' are continuing to 'engage in interference operations.' In light of the ongoing threat of foreign interference in our nation's elections, Congress appropriated $380 million in March 2018 to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) for distribution to states to enhance election security. [...] This report looks at the eighteen states with the most vulnerable election infrastructure and assesses: 1) whether they have requested the EAC grant money; 2) how the state plans on spending the grant money; and 3) whether the state's response is sufficient given the threats and vulnerabilities it is facing."

"When incidents of school violence occur, they leave a profound and lasting impact on the school, the community, and our nation as a whole. Ensuring safe environments for elementary and secondary school students, educators, administrators, and others is essential. This operational guide was developed to provide fundamental direction on how to prevent incidents of targeted school violence, that is, when a student specifically selects a school or a member of the school community for harm. The content in this guide is based on information developed by the U.S. Secret Service, Protective Intelligence and Assessment Division, National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC)."

"The Islamic State is a group known for doing things a bit differently, for its capacity for innovation, and for its many 'firsts.' Two of those 'firsts' happened within months of each other. The first occurred in October 2016 when the group used a bomb-laden drone to kill, after the explosive hidden within the drone killed two Kurdish peshmerga soldiers who were investigating the device. Another 'first' happened in January 2017 when the Islamic State released a propaganda video that showed nearly a dozen examples of the group releasing munitions on its enemies from the air with a fair degree of accuracy via quadcopter drones it had modified. And it wasn't long before the group's bomb-drop capable drones would go on to kill, too. [...] This report seeks to address this gap by evaluating the main factors that helped the Islamic State to effectively use modified commercial drones as weapons. It also highlights some of the broader threat and policy implications associated with the Islamic State's pioneering use of drones, to include how the group--and its actions--could serve as an inspiration or model for other types of actors, to include nation-states or proxy groups that are developing their own hybrid warfare capabilities and strategies."

"During the past quarter century adolescent street gangs, once primarily a phenomenon of a few major metropolitan areas, have spread rapidly throughout the United States. In its most recent survey, the National Youth Gang Center estimated that there were 30,700 gangs with 850,000 members located in over 3,100 jurisdictions throughout the country. Gangs were found in 85% of larger cities, 50% of suburban counties, 32% of smaller cities, and 15% of rural counties. The number of gangs, gang members, and gang-related homicides are on the rise when compared to the previous 5-year average and the problem of street gangs now reaches into all corners of American society (Egley, et al., 2014). [...] The purpose of this study was to produce knowledge about how to prevent at-risk youth from joining gangs and reduce delinquency among active gang members. The study evaluated a modification of Functional Family Therapy, a model program from the Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development initiative, to assess its effectiveness for reducing gang membership and delinquency in a gang-involved population."

"Since its creation in 2012, the National Institute of Justice's Domestic Radicalization to Terrorism program has sponsored research to support community members and practitioners in (1) identifying individuals who are radicalizing to terrorism and (2) developing prevention and intervention efforts. Although several of these projects are ongoing, important findings regarding the potential risk factors and indicators associated with engaging -- or attempting to engage -- in terrorism have begun to emerge. As many of these findings were based on analyses that compared individuals who engaged or attempted to engage in terrorism with those who did not, there is increasingly strong evidence that these risk factors and indicators may help practitioners to distinguish between individuals who are more or less likely to attempt to conduct a terrorist attack, as well as provide a foundation for prevention and intervention programs. [...] Taken together, these findings again suggest that efforts that focus on treating mental health issues, improving individuals' employment prospects, and/or helping them to develop and sustain positive relationships may contribute to prevention and intervention efforts. They also provide some evidence that these efforts may need to take into account individuals' personal and political grievances."