Critical Releases in Homeland Security: November 20, 2019

From the Foreword: "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of State, has prepared this guide to serve as an overview of the approach to critical infrastructure security and resilience adopted in the United States. As attacks on soft targets and crowded places continue across the globe, the need to address current and emerging challenges increases. Therefore, the Department of Homeland Security and Department of State are working together to enhance domestic and global security, with ongoing programs, and recognizing that new approaches may be needed to address these evolving issues. The intent of this guide is to share basic information and U.S. lessons learned over the last 15 years, rather than to promote specific approaches. This information may apply to other countries, particularly those countries that are considering developing or refining their own voluntary and regulatory-based infrastructure security and resilience programs."

From the Executive Summary: "The Commission's research shows that many Americans are negatively impacted by these heinous crimes and are fearful of a rising sentiment of hate and bigotry in the United States. In response to increased reports of hate crimes including horrific acts of violence the Commission voted to investigate the federal government's role in combating hate crimes. In particular, the Commission examined three areas: (1) local law enforcement's reporting practices of hate crimes statistics and federal policies to encourage greater participation in reporting hate crimes; (2) federal prosecution and enforcement of hate crimes laws; and (3) the prevention of hate crimes."

From the Introduction: "Operationally defining the lone offender terrorist is challenging, as the nature of terrorism is both highly political and contextually dependent. Over the years, there has been disagreement over the classification of violent acts under the label of 'terrorism.' While an argument can be made that the infliction of fear upon a targeted group or the public is sufficient to classify an act as terrorism, the FBI definition of terrorism requires a purported motivation that goes beyond exclusively personal motivations and attempts to influence change in furtherance of extremist ideologies of a social, political, religious, racial or environmental nature. The focus of the current study examined offenders who carried out their attacks independent of any direction from a terrorist group or organization."

From the Executive Summary: "Ensuring the safety of children at school is a responsibility that belongs to everyone, including law enforcement, school staff, mental health practitioners, government officials, and members of the general public. To aid in these efforts, the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) studied 41 incidents of targeted school violence that occurred at K-12 schools in the United States from 2008 to 2017. This report builds on 20 years of NTAC research and guidance in the field of threat assessment by offering an in-depth analysis of the motives, behaviors, and situational factors of the attackers, as well as the tactics, resolutions, and other operationally-relevant details of the attacks. The analysis suggests that many of these tragedies could have been prevented, and supports the importance of schools establishing comprehensive targeted violence prevention programs as recommended by the Secret Service in 'Enhancing School Safety Using a Threat Assessment Model: An Operational Guide for Preventing Targeted School Violence.' This approach is intended to identify students of concern, assess their risk for engaging in violence or other harmful activities, and implement intervention strategies to manage that risk. The threshold for intervention should be low, so that schools can identify students in distress before their behavior escalates to the level of eliciting concerns about safety."