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Ideology and Threat Assessment: Law Enforcement Evaluation of Muslim and Right-wing Extremism

NCJ Number
304435
Journal
Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World Volume: 3 Dated: 2017 Pages: 1–13
Author(s)
Charles Kurzman; Ahsan Kamal; Hajar Yazdiha
Date Published
2017
Length
13 pages
Annotation

Regarding whether ideology affects an assessment of the threat of violent extremism, the reported survey of law enforcement agencies in the United States in 2014 provides a comparison that suggests a small but statistically significant effect.

Abstract

Political attitudes were correlated with assessment of threats posed by Muslim extremists, and threat assessment was not correlated with the number of Muslim Americans who had engaged in violent extremism within the agency’s jurisdiction. By contrast, the perceived threat of right-wing terrorism was correlated with the number of incidents of right-wing violence and not with political attitudes. These findings reflect the context of growing polarization of attitudes toward Muslims in the United States as well as the challenge of bringing counterterrorism policies into proportion with the actual scale of violent extremism. (Publisher Abstract)