NCJ Number
79332
Date Published
Unknown
Length
99 pages
Annotation
The activities of the National League of Cities (NLC) in encouraging and guiding local officials in terrorism preparedness are summarized and assessed.
Abstract
In 1980, the NLC conducted a National Working Session (NWS) for municipal officials to develop an increased awareness of the need for local executive-level crisis management plans and policies which would encompass terrorism threats and to indicate the local, national, and international concerns which may be involved. The NWS also focused on resources available or which could be developed locally to increase terrorism preparedness. The NWS gave considerable attention to the proper role for the mayor or the city manager in an unfolding terrorist incident, and this emphasis was well received by participating officials. A few months after the NWS project, staff members visited 9 of the 28 cities represented at the NWS in order to examine the state of terrorism preparedness in those cities and to learn if the NWS had made a difference in the way participating officials think about and act toward the problem of terrorism. The site visits indicated that generally strategic or policy-level preparedness for terrorist threats is low, but police preparedness, however, is fairly high, although isolated from overall official preparedness. High-risk cities were more likely to have terrorism contingency plans within their emergency preparedness framework. The followup evaluations revealed that the terrorism preparedness project has made a difference in the way participating municipal officials think about terrorism. Heightened awareness has also facilitated increased levels of activity in certain cities, notably in assessing existing emergency plans and consideration of revisions. Appended are a list of NWS participants, a conference agenda, papers presented at the NWS, and samples of the evaluation questionnaires.