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Twenty-Five Years of Ideological Homicide Victimization in the United States of America

Abstract:

This brief report presents the preliminary results of 25 years of ideological victimization committed by al-Qa’ida and affiliated movements and the extremist far-right in the United States from 1990 to 2014. Excluding the homicide victims associated with the four attacks on 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing, 62 individuals were killed in 38 ideologically motivated homicide events committed by extremists associated with al-Qa’ida and affiliated movements[1] and 245 were killed by far-right extremists in 177 ideologically motivated incidents. The data for this report originates from the United States Extremist Crime Database (ECDB), an open-source dataset that examines ideologically motivated and routine criminal activity, both violent and financial, committed by ideological extremists. Although the results of incident and suspect data have been released, this is the first report that focuses solely on victimization characteristics. In addition, this report also compares two distinct types of ideological victimization, homicides committed by adherents to far-right extremism (FRE) in the U.S. and those committed by individuals who associate themselves with al-Qa’ida and affiliated movements (AQAM).

 

[1] This numbers also includes one homicide victim killed in an ideologically motivated, secular nationalist incident.

Publication Information

Full Citation:

Parkin, William S., Steven M. Chermak, Joshua D. Freilich, and Jeff Gruenewald. “Twenty-Five Years of Ideological Homicide Victimization in the United States of America,” Report to the Office of University Programs, Science and Technology Directorate, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. College Park, MD: START, 2016. http://www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_CSTAB_ECDB_25YearsofIdeologicalHomicideVictimizationUS_March2016.pdf