Law Enforcement Ranks Anti-Government Extremism as Most Prevalent Terrorist Threat

Duke SSPP
Jul. 02, 2015

DURHAM, N.C. -- U.S. law enforcement agencies rank the threat of violence from anti-government extremists higher than the threat from radicalized Muslims, according to a report released Thursday by the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security (TCTHS).

The report, "Law Enforcement Assessment of the Violent Extremism Threat," was based on survey research by Charles Kurzman, professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and David Schanzer, director of TCTHS and associate professor of the practice at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy.

"The data show that we have two distinct, serious, ongoing terrorist threats in the United States," Schanzer said. "Tragic incidents of violence, whether they be in Charleston or the Boston Marathon, tend to exaggerate the magnitude of the threat, but both will require consistent societal and law enforcement vigilance in the foreseeable future."

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