OVERVIEW
Since 1988, the American Terrorism Study (ATS) has collected, coded, and analyzed terrorism-related federal court cases in the United States. The study is housed in the Terrorism Research Center (TRC) and has expanded over the last three decades to include legal and geospatial variables.
Court cases included in the American Terrorism Study must be the result of an FBI terrorism investigation and come from a specific list of cases from the FBI, meet the FBI’s definition of terrorism and involve a perpetrator federally indicted in the United States, or the individual must appear on an official federal government list of terrorism cases. These cases are collected using the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system.
ATS variables include but are not limited to: informant usage in terrorism investigations, legal strategies and outcomes, attendant criminal behavior, geospatial and temporal patterns of the planning process, target characteristics, and group dynamics. Additional variables are coded for each case when funding is available. For data inquiries, please Contact Us directly.
ASSOCIATED ITEMS
Terrorism Research Center Receives Funding to Study Ways to Prevent Targeted Violence in U.S.
Researchers at the U of A's Terrorism Research Center were recently awarded $751,842 from the Department of Homeland Security to study how individuals mobilize toward violence, including violent extremism, school shootings and other forms of mass shootings. The...
ATS Data Available at the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) Website
Earlier this year, the TRC completed work on its federally funded project Investigative and Prosecutorial Strategies: Creation of a Federal Terrorism Court Record Repository. Funded by the National Institute of Justice in 2018, the project resulted in the development...
Research Brief: Seditious Conspiracy Cases in the American Terrorism Study (ATS)
TRC Receives Funding from National Institute of Justice to Study Online and Offline Radicalization
The Terrorism Research Center (TRC) was recently selected to receive $893,721 from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to study online and offline radicalization, as well as cyberterrorism. The three year project, titled "From Dot Coms to Pipe Bombs: Online...
Recently Published TRC Research Examines Gender and Terrorism
A new study examining female terrorist defendants using American Terrorism Study (ATS) data was recently published in Crime & Delinquency. The article is the result of collaboration between TRC Director Jeff Gruenewald and Associate Director Katie Ratcliff, along...